I 


THE  DARK  FLEECE 


THE    WORKS   OF 
JOSEPH    HERGESHEIMER 

NOVELS 

THE  LAY  ANTHONY  [1914] 
MOUNTAIN   BLOOD   [1915] 
THE  THREE  BLACK  PENNYS   [1917] 
JAVA  HEAD   [1918] 
LINDA   CONDON    [1919] 
CYTHEREA    [1922] 
THE  BRIGHT  SHAWL  [In  preparation] 

SHORTER  STORIES 

WILD   ORANGES    [1918] 
TUBAL  CAIN   [1918] 
THE  DARK  FLEECE  [1918] 
THE  HAPPY  END  [1919] 

TRA  VEL 

SAN   CRISTOBAL  DE   LA  HABANA   [1920] 


NEW  YORK:    ALFRED  A.  KNOPF 


THE 
DARK  FLEECE 

JOSEPH  HERGESHEIMER 


NEW  YORK 

ALFRED' A' KNOPF 

1922 


COPYRIGHT,  1918,  BY 
ALFRED  A.  KNOPF,  INC. 

Published,  April,  1918,  in  a  volume  now  out  of  print, 
entitled  "Gold  and  Iron,"  and  then  reprinted  twice. 

First  published  separately,  March,  19SS 


Bet  up,  electrotype*,  and  printed  6y  tte  Vail-Battou  Co.,  Binghomton,  N.  Y. 
Paper  supplied  bv  W.  F.  Ethtrington  A  Co..  A'eto  York,  A".  Y. 
Bound  6v  the  Plimpton  Frees,  Norwood,  Mats. 


MANUFACTURED  IN  TSE  UNITED  STATES  01"  AMERICA 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

OLIVE  9 

HONORA  51 

JASON  95 


599314 


OLIVE 


. 


THE  house  in  old  Cottarsport  in  which  Olive 
Stanes  lived  was  set  midway  on  the  steep 
ness  of  Orange  Street.  It  was  a  low 
dwelling  of  weathered  boards  holding  close  to  the 
rocky  soil,  resembling,  like  practically  all  the  Cot 
tarsport  buildings,  the  salt  weed  clinging  to  the  sea 
ward  rocks  of  the  harbor;  and  Orange  Street,  nar 
row,  without  walks,  and  dipping  into  cuplike  de 
pressions,  was  a  type  of  almost  all  the  streets.  The 
Stanes  house  was  built  with  its  gable  to  the  public 
way;  the  length  faced  a  granite  shoulder  thrust  up 
through  the  spare  earth,  a  tall,  weedy  disorder  of 
golden  glow,  and  the  sedgy  incline  to  the  habita 
tion  above. 

When  Hester  and  Jem  and  then  Rhoda  were 
little  they  had  had  great  joy  of  the  boulder  in  the 
side  yard :  it  was  for  them  first  impossible  and  then 
difficult  of  accomplishment;  but  they  had  rapidly 
grown  into  a  complete  mastery  of  its  potentialities 
as  a  fort,  a  mansion  impressive  as  that  of  the  Can- 
derays'  on  Regent  Street,  and  a  ship  under  the  dan 
gerous  shore  of  the  Feejees.  Olive,  the  solitary 
child  of  Ira  Stanes'  first  marriage,  had  had  no 
such  reckless  pleasure  from  the  rock 

She  had  been,  she  realized,  standing  in  the  nar- 
[9] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

row  portico  that  commanded  by  two  steps  the  un 
even  flagging  from  the  street,  a  very  careful,  yes, 
considerate,  child  when  measured  by  the  gay  ir 
responsibility  of  her  half  brother  and  sisters. 
Money  had  been  no  more  plentiful  in  the  Stanes 
family,  nor  in  all  Cottarsport,  then  than  now;  her 
dresses  had  been  few,  she  had  been  told  not  to  soil 
or  tear  them,  and  she  had  rigorously  attended  the 
instruction. 

The  second  Mrs.  Stanes,  otherwise  an  admirable 
wife  and  mother,  had,  to  Olive's  young  disapproval, 
rather  encouraged  a  boisterous  conduct  in  her  chil 
dren  which  overlooked  a  complete  cleanliness  or 
tidy  array.  And  when  she,  like  her  predecessor, 
had  died,  and  left  Olive  at  twenty-three  to  assume 
full  maternal  responsibilities,  that  serious  vicarious 
parent  had  entered  into  an  inevitable  and  largely 
unavailing  struggle  against  the  minor  damage 
caused  mostly  by  the  activities  about  the  boul 
der. 

Now  Hester  and  Rhoda  had  left  behind  such 
purely  imaginative  games,  and  Jem  was  away 
fishing  on  the  Georges  Bank;  her  duty  and  worries 
had  shifted,  but  not  lessened;  while  the  rock  re 
mained  precisely  as  it  had  been  through  the  chil 
dren's  growth,  as  it  had  appeared  in  her  own 
earliest  memories,  as  it  was  before  ever  the  Stanes 
dwelling,  now  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  in  place, 
or  old  Cottarsport  itself,  had  been  dreamed  of. 
Her  thoughts  were  mixed:  at  once  they  created  a 

[10] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

vague  parallel  between  the  granite  in  the  side  yard 
and  herself,  Olive  Stanes — they  both  seemed  to 
have  been  so  long  in  one  spot,  so  unchanged;  and 
they  dwelt  on  the  fact  that  soon — as  soon  as  Jason 
Burrage  got  home — she  must  be  utterly  different. 

Jason  had  written  her  that,  if  they  cared  to,  they 
could  build  a  house  as  large  as  the  Canderays'. 
Under  the  circumstances  she  had  been  obliged  to 
look  on  that  as,  perhaps,  an  excusable  exaggera 
tion,  though  she  instinctively  condemned  the  der 
eliction  of  the  truth ;  yet,  more  than  any  other  figure 
could  possibly  have  done,  it  impressed  upon  her, 
from  the  boldness  of  the  imagery,  that  Jason  had 
succeeded  in  finding  the  gold  for  which  he  had 
gone  in  search  nine  years  before.  He  was  coming 
back,  soon,  rich. 

The  other  important  fact  reiterated  in  his  last 
letter,  that  in  all  his  absent  years  of  struggle  he 
had  never  faltered  in  his  purpose  of  coming  to  her 
with  any  fortune  he  might  chance  to  get,  she  re 
garded  with  scant  thought.  It  had  not  occurred  to 
Olive  that  Jason  Burrage  would  do  anything  else; 
her  only  concern  had  been  that  he  might  be  killed ; 
otherwise  he  had  said  that  he  loved  her,  and  that 
they  were  to  marry  when  he  returned. 

She  hadn't,  really,  been  in  favor  of  his  going. 
The  Burrages,  measured  by  Cottarsport  standards, 
were  comfortably  situated — Mr.  Burrage's  packing 
warehouse  and  employment  in  dried  fish  were 
locally  called  successful — but  Jason  had  never  been 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

satisfied  with  familiar  values;  he  had  always  ex 
claimed  against  the  narrowness  of  his  local  cir 
cumstance,  and  restlessly  reached  toward  greater 
possessions  and  a  wider  horizon.  This  dissatisfac 
tion  Olive  had  thought  wicked,  in  that  it  had 
seemed  to  criticize  the  omnipotent  and  far-seeing 
wisdom  of  the  Eternal;  it  had  caused  her  much 
unhappiness  and  prayer,  she  had  talked  very 
earnestly  to  Jason  about  his  stubborn  spirit,  but  it 
had  persisted  in  him,  and  at  last  carried  him  west 
in  the  first  madness  of  the  discovery  of  gold  in  a 
California  river. 

Olive,  at  times,  thought  that  Jason's  revolt  had 
been  brought  about  by  the  visible  example  of 
the  worldly  pomp  of  the  Canderays — of  their 
great  white  house  with  the  balustraded  captain's 
walk  on  the  gambreled  roof,  their  chaise,  and 
equable  but  slightly  disconcerting  courtesy.  But 
she  had  been  obliged  to  admit  that,  after  all  was 
said,  Jason's  bearing  was  the  result  of  his  own 
fretful  heart. 

He  had  always  been  different  from  the  other 
Cottarsport  youths  and  men:  while  they  were  com 
monly  long  and  bony,  and  awkwardly  hung  to 
gether,  thickly  tanned  by  the  winds  and  sun  and 
spray  of  the  sea,  Jason  was  small,  compact,  with 
dead  black  hair  and  pale  skin.  Mr.  Burrage, 
who  resembled  a  worn  and  discolored  piece  of 
driftwood,  was  the  usual  Cottarsport  old  man; 
but  his  wife,  not  conspicuously  out  of  the  ordinary, 

[12] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

still  had  a  snap  in  her  unfading  eyes,  a  ruddy 
roundness  of  cheek,  that  showed  a  lingering  trace 
of  a  French  Acadian  intermarriage  a  century  and 
more  ago. 

Olive  always  regarded  with  something  like  sur 
prise  her  unquestioned  love  for  Jason.  It  had 
grown  quietly,  unknown  to  her,  through  a  number 
of  preliminary  years  in  which  she  had  felt  that  she 
must  exert  some  influence  for  his  good.  He  fright 
ened  her  a  little  by  his  hot  utterances  and  by  the 
manner  in  which  his  soul  shivered  on  the  verge  of  a 
righteous  damnation.  The  effort  to  preserve  him 
from  such  destruction  became  intenser  and  more 
involved;  until  suddenly,  to  her  later  consternation, 
she  had  surrendered  her  lips  in  a  single,  binding 
kiss. 

But  with  that  consummation  a  great  deal  of  her 
troubling  had  ceased;  spiritual  vision,  she  had 
been  certain,  must  follow  their  sacred  union  and 
subsequent  life.  Even  the  gold  agitation  and 
Jason's  departure  for  Boston  and  the  western  wild 
had  not  given  her  especial  concern.  God  was  the 
supreme  Master  of  human  fate,  and  if  He  willed 
for  Jason  to  go  forth,  who  was  she,  Olive  Stanes, 
to  make  a  to-do?  She  had  quietly  addressed  her 
self  to  the  task  of  Hester,  Jem,  and  Rhoda,  to  the 
ordering  of  her  father's  household — he  was  mostly 
away  on  the  sea  and  a  solitary  man  at  home — and 
the  formal  recurrence  of  the  occasions  of  the  church. 

In  such  ways,  she  thought,  bathed  in  the  keen, 
[13] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

pale  red  glow  of  a  late  afternoon  in  October,  her 
youth  had  slipped  imperceptibly  away. 

A  strong  salt  wind  dipped  into  the  hollow,  and 
plastered  her  skirt,  without  hoops,  against  her 
erect,  thin  person.  With  the  instinct,  bred  by  the 
sea,  of  the  presence  in  all  calculations  of  the 
weather,  she  mechanically  dwelt  on  its  force  and 
direction,  wrinkling  her  forehead  and  pinching  her 
lips — she  could  hear  the  rising  wind  straining 
through  the  elms  on  the  hills  behind  Cottarsport — 
and  then  she  turned  abruptly  and  entered  the  house. 

There  was  a  small  dark  hallway  within,  a  nar 
row  flight  of  stairs  leading  sharply  up;  the  door 
on  the  right,  to  the  formal  chamber,  was  closed; 
but  at  the  left  an  interior  of  somber  scrubbed  wood 
was  visible.  On  the  side  against  the  hall  a  caver 
nous  fireplace,  with  a  brick  hearth,  blackened  with 
shadows  and  the  soot  of  ancient  fires,  had  been  left 
open,  but  held  an  air-tight  sheet-iron  stove.  The 
windows,  high  on  the  walls,  were  small  and  long, 
rather  than  deep;  and  a  table,  perpetually  spread, 
stood  on  a  thick  hooked  rug  of  brilliant,  primitive 
design. 

Rhoda,  in  a  creaking  birch  rocker,  was  singing 
an  inarticulated  song  with  closed  eyes.  Her  voice, 
giving  the  impression  of  being  subdued,  filled  the 
room  with  its  vibrant  power.  She  had  a  mature 
face  for  sixteen  years,  vividly  colored  and  sensitive, 
a  wide  mouth,  and  heavy  twists  of  russet  hair  with 

[14] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

metallic  lights.  The  song  stopped  as  Olive  en 
tered.  Rhoda  said: 

"I  wish  Hester  would  hurry  home;  I'm  dreadful 
hungry." 

"Sometimes  they  keep  her  at  the  packing  house, 
especially  if  there's  a  boat  in  late  and  extra  work." 

"It's  not  very  smart  of  her  without  being  paid 
more.  They'll  just  put  anything  on  you  they  can 
in  this  stingy  place.  I  can  tell  you  I  wouldn't  do 
two  men's  work  for  a  woman's  pay.  I'm  awful 
glad  Jason's  coming  back  soon,  Olive,  with  all 
that  money,  and  I  can  go  to  Boston  and  study 
singing." 

"I've  said  over  and  over,  Rhoda,"  Olive  replied 
patiently,  "that  you  mustn't  think  and  talk  all  the 
time  about  Jason's  worldly  success.  It  doesn't 
sound  nice,  but  like  we  were  all  trying  to  get  every 
thing  we  could  out  of  him  before  ever  he's  here." 

"Didn't  he  say  in  the  last  letter  that  I  was 
to  go  to  Boston?"  Rhoda  exclaimed  impatiently. 
"Didn't  he  just  up  and  tell  me  that?  Why,  with 
all  the  gold  Jason's  got  it  won't  mean  anything  for 
him  to  send  me  away.  It  isn't  as  if  I  wouldn't 
pay  you  all  back  for  the  trouble  I've  been.  I 
know  I  can  sing,  and  I'll  work  harder  than  ever 
Hester  dreamed  of " 

As  if  materialized  by  the  pronunciation  of  her 
name,  the  latter  entered  the  room.  "Gracious, 
Hester,"  Rhoda  declared  distastefully,  making  a 
nose,  "you  smell  of  dead  haddock  right  this 

[15] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

minute."  Hester,  unlike  Rhoda's  softly  rounded 
proportions,  was  more  bony  than  Olive,  infinitely 
more  colorless,  although  ten  years  the  younger. 
She  had  a  black  worsted  scarf  over  her  drab  head 
in  place  of  a  hat,  its  ends  wrapped  about  her 
meager  shoulders  and  bombazine  waist.  Without 
preliminary  she  dropped  into  her  place  at  the  sup 
per  table,  the  shawl  trailing  on  the  broad,  uneven 
boards  of  the  floor. 

"The  wind's  smartening  up  on  the  bay,"  she 
told  them.  "Captain  Eagleston  looks  for  half  a 
blow.  It  has  got  cold,  too.  I  wish  the  tea'd  be 
ready  when  I  get  in  from  the  packing  house.  It 
seems  that  much  could  be  done,  with  Olive  only 
sitting  around  and  Rhoda  singing  to  herself  in  the 
mirror  on  her  dresser." 

"It'll  draw  in  a  minute  more,"  Olive  said  in  the 
door  from  the  kitchen,  beyond  the  fireplace. 
Rhoda  smiled  cheerfully. 

"I  suppose,"  Hester  went  on,  in  a  voice  without 
emphasis  that  yet  contrived  to  be  thinly  bitter,  "you 
were  all  talking  about  what  would  happen  when 
Jason  came  home  with  that  fortune  of  his.  Far  as 
I  can  see  he's  promised  and  provided  for  every 
body,  Jem  and  Rhoda  and  his  parents  and  Olive, 
every  Tom  and  Noddy,  but  me." 

"I  don't  like  to  keep  on  about  it,"  Olive  pro 
tested,  pained.  "Yet  you  can't  see,  Hester,  how 
independent  you  are.  A  person  wouldn't  like  to 

[16] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

offer  you  anything  until  you  had  signified.  You 
were  never  very  nice  with  Jason  anyway." 

"Well,  I'm  not  going  to  be  nicer  after  he's  back 
with  gold  in  his  pocket.  I  guess  he'll  find  I'm 
not  hanging  on  his  shoulder  for  a  cashmere  dress 
or  a  trip  to  Boston." 

"Pa  ought  to  get  into  Salem  soon,"  Rhoda  ob 
served.  "He  said  after  this  he  wasn't  going  to 
ship  again,  even  along  the  coast,  but  tally  fish  for 
Mr.  Burrage.  Pa's  getting  old." 

"And  Jem'll  be  home  from  the  Georges,  too," 
Olive  added,  seating  herself  with  the  tea.  "I  do 
hope  he  won't  sign  for  China  or  any  of  those  long 
voyages  like  he  threatened." 

"He  won't  get  so  far  away  from  Jason,"  Hester 
stated. 

"I  saw  Honora  Canderay  today,"  Rhoda  in 
formed  them.  "She  wasn't  in  the  carriage,  but 
walking  past  the  courthouse.  She  had  on  a  small 
bonnet  with  flowers  inside  the  brim  and  skimpy 
hoops,  gallooned  and  scalloped." 

"Did  she  stop?"  Olive  inquired. 

"Yes,  and  said  I  was  as  bright  as  a  fall  maple 
leaf.  I  wish  I  could  look  like  Honora  Can 
deray " 

"Wait  till  Jason's  back,"  Hester  interrupted. 

"It  isn't  her  clothes,"  Rhoda  went  on;  "they're 
elegant  material,  of  course,  but  not  the  colors  I'd 
choose;  nor  it  isn't  her  looks,  either,  no  one  would 

[17] 


THE    DARK   FLEECE 

say  she's  downright  pretty;  it's  just — just  her.     Is 
she  as  old  as  you,  Olive?" 

"Let's  see,  I'm  thirty-six,  and  Honora  Canderay 
was  .  .  .  she's  near  as  old,  a  year  younger  maybe." 

"She  is  wonderful  to  get  close  to,"  said  Rhoda, 
"no  cologne  and  yet  a  lovely  kind  of  smell " 

"Not  like  dead  haddock."  This  was  Hester 
again. 

"Do  you  know,"  proceeded  the  younger,  "she 
seemed  to  me  kind  of  lonely.  I  wanted  to  give 
her  a  hug,  but  I  wouldn't  have  for  all  the  gold  in 
California.  I  can't  make  out  if  she  is  freezing 
outside  and  nice  in,  or  just  polite  and  thinks  no 
body's  good  enough  for  her.  She  had  an  India 
shawl  as  big  as  a  sail,  with  palm  leaf  ends,  and " 

"Rhoda,  I  wish  you  wouldn't  put  so  much  on 
clothes  and  such  corruption."  Olive  spoke  firmly, 
with  a  light  of  zeal  in  her  gaze.  "Can't  you  think 
on  the  eternities?" 

"Like  Jason  Burrage  and  Honora  Canderay," 
explained  Hester;   "Honora  Canderay  and  Jason 
Burrage.     They're    eternities    if    there    ever   were 
any.     If  it  isn't  one  it's  bound  to  be  the  other." 
•         •••••• 

Olive's  room  had  a  sloping  outer  wall  and  casu 
ally  placed  insufficient  windows;  her  bed,  with  a 
blue-white  quilt,  was  supported  by  heavy  maple 
posts;  there  were  a  chest  of  drawers,  with  a  minute 
mirror  stand,  a  utilitarian  wash-pitcher  and  basin, 
a  hanging  for  the  protection  of  her  clothes,  and 

[18] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

uncompromising  chairs.  A  small  circular  table 
with  a  tatted  cover  held  her  Bible  and  a  devotional 
book,  "The  Family  Companion,  by  a  Pastor." 
It  was  cold  when  she  went  up  to  bed;  with  a  de 
sire  to  linger  in  her  preparations,  she  put  some 
resinous  sticks  of  wood  into  a  sheet-iron  stove,  and 
almost  immediately  there  was  a  busily  exploding 
combustion.  A  glass  lamp  on  the  chest  of  drawers 
shed  a  pale  illumination  that  failed  to  reach  the 
confines  of  the  room;  and,  for  a  while,  she  moved 
in  and  out  of  its  wan  influence. 

She  was  thinking  fixedly  about  Jason  Burrage, 
and  the  great  impending  change  in  her  condition, 
not  in  its  worldly  implications — she  thought  mostly 
of  material  values  in  the  spirit  of  her  admonitions 
.to  Rhoda — but  in  its  personal  and  inner  force. 
At  times  a  pale  question  of  her  aptitude  for  mar 
riage  disturbed  her  serenity;  at  times  she  saw  it  as 
a  sacrifice  of  her  being  to  a  condition  commanded 
of  God,  a  species  of  martyrdom  even.  The  nine 
years  of  Jason's  absence  had  fixed  certain  maidenly 
habits  of  privacy;  the  mold  of  her  life  had  taken  a 
definite  cast.  Her  existence  had  its  routine,  the 
recurrence  of  Sunday,  its  contemplations,  duties, 
and  heavenly  aim.  And,  lately,  Jason's  letters  had 
disturbed  her. 

They  seemed  filled  with  an  almost  wicked  pride 
and  a  disconcerting  energy;  he  spoke  of  things 
instinctively  distressing  to  her;  there  were  hints  of 
rude,  Godless  force  and  gaiety — allusions  to  the 

[19] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

Jenny  Lind  Theatre,  the  El  Dorado,  which  she 
apprehended  as  a  name  of  evil  import,  and  to  the 
excursions  they  would  make  to  Boston  or  as  far 
as  New  York. 

Jason,  too,  she  realized,  must  have  developed; 
and  California,  she  feared,  might  have  emphasized 
exactly  such  traits  as  she  would  wish  suppressed. 
The  power  of  self-destruction  in  the  human  heart 
she  believed  immeasurable.  All,  all,  must  throw 
themselves  in  abject  humility  upward  upon  the 
Rock  of  Salvation.  And  she  could  find  nothing 
humble  in  Jason's  periods,  burdened  as  they  were 
with  a  patent  satisfaction  in  the  success  of  his 
venture. 

Yet  parallel  with  this  was  a  gladness  that  he 
had  triumphed,  and  that  he  was  coming  back  to 
Cottarsport  a  figure  of  importance.  She  could 
measure  that  by  the  attitude  of  their  town,  by  the 
number  and  standing  of  the  people  who  cordially 
stopped  her  on  the  street  for  the  purposes  of  con 
gratulation  and  curiosity.  Every  one,  of  course, 
had  known  of  their  engagement;  there  had  been  a 
marked  interest  when  Jason  and  a  fellow  towns 
man,  Thomas  Gast,  had  departed;  but  that  would 
be  insignificant  compared  to  the  permanent  bulk 
Jason  must  now  assume.  Why  he  and  the 
Canderays  would  be  Cottarsport's  most  considerable 
people. 

As  always,  at  the  merest  thought  of  the  Can 
derays,  personal  facts  were  suspended  for  a  mental 

[20] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

glance  at  that  separate  family.  There  was  no 
sense  of  inferiority  in  Olive's  mind,  but  an  in 
stinctive  feeling  of  difference.  This  wasn't  the 
result  of  their  big  house,  nor  because  the  Captain's 
wife  had  been  a  member  of  Boston  society,  but 
resided  in  the  contrariness  of  the  family  itself, 
now  centered  in  Honora,  the  only  one  alive. 

Perhaps  Honora's  diversity  lay  in  the  fact  that, 
while  she  seldom  actually  left  Cottarsport,  it  was 
easy  to  see  that  she  had  a  part  in  a  life  far  beyond 
anything  Olive,  whose  consciousness  was  strictly 
limited  to  one  narrow  place,  knew.  She  always 
suggested  a  wider  and  more  elegantly  finished  ex 
istence  than  that  of  local  sociables  and  church 
activities.  Captain  Ithiel  Canderay,  a  member  of 
a  Cottarsport  family  long  since  moved  away,  had, 
from  obscure  surprising  promptings,  returned  at 
his  successful  retirement  from  the  sea,  and  built  his 
impressive  dwelling  in  the  grey  community.  He 
had  always,  however  different  the  tradition  of  his 
wife's  attitude,  entered  with  a  candid  spirit  into 
the  interests  and  life  of  the  town,  where  he  had  in 
spired  solid  confidence  in  a  domineering  but  unim 
peachable  integrity.  Such  small  civic  honors  as 
the  locality  had  to  bestow  were  his,  and  were  dis 
charged  to  the  last  and  most  exacting  degree.  But 
there  had  been  perpetually  about  him  the  aloof  air 
of  the  quarter-deck,  his  tones  had  never  lost  the 
accent  of  command;  and,  while  Cottarsport  bitterly 
guarded  its  personal  equality  and  independence,  it 

[21] 


THE    DARK   FLEECE 

took  a  certain  pride  in  a  recognition  of  the  Cap 
tain's  authority. 

Something  of  this  had  unquestionably  descended 
upon  Honora ;  her  position  was  made  and  zealously 
guarded  by  the  town.  Yet  that  alone  failed  to 
hold  the  reason  for  Olive's  feeling;  it  was  at  once 
more  particular  and  more  all-embracing,  and 
largely  feminine.  She  was  almost  contemptuous  of 
the  other's  delicacy  of  person,  of  the  celebrated 
fact  that  Honora  Canderay  never  turned  her  hand 
to  the  cooking  of  a  dish  or  the  sweeping  of  a  stair; 
and  at  the  same  time  these  very  things  lifted  her 
apart  from  Olive's  commonplace  round. 

Her  mind  turned  again  to  herself  and  Jason's 
home-coming.  He  had  been  wonderfully  generous 
in  his  written  promises  to  Rhoda  and  Jem;  and 
he  would  be  equally  thoughtful  of  Hester,  she  was 
certain  of  that.  People  had  a  way  of  overlooking 
Hester,  a  faithful  and,  for  all  her  talk,  a  Christian 
character.  Rhoda  would  study  to  be  a  singer; 
striving,  Olive  hoped,  to  put  what  talent  she  had 
to  a  sanctioned  use;  and  Jem,  a  remarkably  vigor 
ous  and  able  boy  of  eighteen,  would  command  his 
own  fishing  schooner. 

The  sheet-iron  stove  glowed  cherry  red  with  the 
energy  of  its  heat,  and  a  blast  of  wind  rushed 
against  the  windows.  The  wind,  she  recognized, 
had  steadily  grown  in  force;  and  Olive  thought  of 
her  father  in  the  barque  Emerald  of  Salem,  some- 

[22] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

where  between  Richmond  and  the  home  port.  .  .  . 
The  lamplight  swelled  and  diminished. 

She  got  a  new  pleasure  from  the  conjunction  of 
her  surrender  to  matrimony  and  the  good  it  would 
bring  the  others;  that — self-sacrifice — was  excel 
lence;  such  subjection  of  the  pride  of  the  flesh  was 
the  essence  of  her  service.  Then  some  mundane 
affairs  invaded  her  mind:  a  wedding  dress,  the 
preparation  of  food  for  a  small  company  after  the 
ceremony,  whether  she  should  like  having  a  servant. 
Jason  would  insist  on  that;  and  there  she  decided 
in  the  negative.  She  wouldn't  be  put  upon  in  her 
own  kitchen. 

Her  arrangements  for  the  night  were  complete, 
and  she  set  the  stove  door  slightly  open,  shivering 
in  her  coarse  night  dress  before  the  icy  cold  drifts 
of  wind  in  the  room,  extinguished  the  lamp,  and, 
after  long,  conscientiously  deliberate  prayers,  got 
into  bed.  The  wind  boomed  about  the  house, 
rattling  all  the  sashes.  Its  force  now  seemed  to  be 
buffeting  her  heart  until  she  got  a  measure  of  re 
lease  from  the  thought  of  the  granite  boulder  in  the 
side  yard,  changeless  and  immovable. 

The  morning  was  gusty,  with  a  coldly  blue  and 
cloudless  sky.  Olive,  reaching  the  top  of  Orange 
Street,  was  whipped  with  dust,  her  hoops  flattened 
grotesquely  against  her  body.  The  town  fell  away 

[23] 


THE    DARK   FLEECE 

on  either  hand,  lying  in  a  half  moon  on  its  harbor. 
The  latter,  as  blue  and  bright  as  the  sky,  was 
formed  by  the  rocky  arm  of  Cottar's  Neck,  thrust 
out  into  the  sea  and  bent  from  right  to  left.  Most 
of  the  fishing  fleet  showed  their  bare  spars  at  the 
wharves,  but  one,  a  minute  fleck  of  white  canvas, 
was  beating  her  way  through  the  Narrows,  She 
wondered,  descending,  if  it  were  Jem  coming  home. 

Olive  was  going  to  the  Burrages';  it  was  possible 
that  they  had  had  a  later  letter  than  hers  from 
Jason.  It  might  be  he  would  arrive  that  very 
day.  She  was  conscious  of  her  heart  throbbing 
slightly  at  this  possibility,  but  from  a  complexity 
of  emotions  which  still  left  her  uneasy  if  faintly 
exhilarated.  She  crossed  the  courthouse  square, 
where  she  saw  that  the  green  grass  had  become 
brown,  apparently  over  night,  and  turned  into 
Marlboro  Street.  Here  the  houses  were  more 
recent  than  the  Staneses';  they  were  four  square, 
with  a  full  second  story — a  series  of  detached  white 
blocks  with  flat  porticoes — each  set  behind  a  wood 
fence  in  a  lawn  with  flower  borders  or  twisted  and 
tree-like  lilacs. 

She  entered  the  Burrage  dwelling  without  the 
formality  of  knocking;  and,  familiar  with  the 
household,  passed  directly  through  a  narrow, 
darkened  hall,  on  wrhich  all  the  doors  were  closed, 
to  the  dining  room  and  kitchen  beyond.  As  she 
had  known  he  would  be,  Hazzard  Burrage  was 
seated  with  his  feet,  in  lamb's  wool  slippers,  thrust 

[24] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

under  the  stove.  For  the  rest,  but  lacking  his 
coat,  he  was  formally  and  completely  dressed;  his 
corded  throat  was  folded  in  a  formal  black  stock, 
a  watch  chain  and  seal  hung  across  his  waistcoat. 
Mrs.  Burrage  was  occupied  in  lining  a  cupboard 
with  fresh  shelf  paper  with  a  cut  lace  border.  She 
was  a  small  woman,  with  quick  exact  movements 
and  an  impatient  utterance;  but  her  husband  was 
slow — a  man  who  deliberately  studied  the  world 
with  a  deep-set  gaze. 

"I  thought  you  might  have  heard,"  Olive  stated 
directly,  on  the  edge  of  a  painted  split-hickory 
chair.  They  hadn't,  Mrs.  Burrage  informed  her: 

"I  expect  he'll  just  come  walking  in.  That's 
the  way  he  always  did  things,  and  I  guess  Califor 
nia,  or  anywhere  else,  won't  change  him  to  notice 
it.  And  when  he  does,"  she  continued,  "he's  going 
to  be  put  out  with  Hazzard.  I  told  you  Jason 
sent  us  three  thousand  dollars  to  get  the  front  of 
the  house  fixed  up.  He  said  he  didn't  want  to  find 
his  father  sitting  in  the  kitchen  when  he  got  back. 
Jason  said  we  were  to  burn  three  or  four  stoves  all 
at  once.  But  he  won't,  and  that's  all  there  is  to 
it.  Why,  he  just  put  the  money  in  the  bank  and 
there  it  lies.  I  read  him  the  parable  about  the 
talents,  but  it  didn't  stir  him  an  inch." 

"Jason  always  was  quick  acting,"  Hazzard  Bur- 
rage  declared;  "he  never  stopped  to  consider;  and 
it's  as  like  as  not  he'll  need  that  money.  It 
wouldn't  surprise  me  if  when  he  sat  down  and 

[25] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

counted  what  he  had  Jason'd  find  it  was  less  than 
he  thought." 

"He  wrote  me,"  Olive  stated,  "that  we  could 
build  a  house  as  big  as  the  Canderays'." 

"Jason  always  was  one  to  talk,"  Mrs.  Burrage 
replied  in  defense  of  her  son. 

Olive  moved  over  to  the  older  woman  and  held 
the  dishes  to  be  replaced  in  the  cupboard.  They 
commented  on  the  force  of  the  wind  throughout 
the  night.  "The  tail  end  of  a  blow  at  sea,"  Bur- 
rage  told  them;  "I  wouldn't  wonder  but  it  reached 
right  down  to  the  West  Indies." 

"I  hope  he  brings  me  a  grey  satinet  pelerine  like 
I  wrote,"  said  Mrs.  Burrage.  She  was  obviously 
flushed  at  the  thought  of  the  possession  of  such  a 
garment — a  fact  which  Olive  felt,  at  the  other's 
age,  to  be  inappropriate  to  the  not  distant  solemnity 
of  the  Christian  ordeal  of  death.  She  repeated 
automatically:  ".  .  .  turn  from  these  vanities  unto 
the  living  God."  She  rose: 

"I'll  let  you  know  if  I  hear  anything,  and  any 
how  stop  in  tomorrow." 

Outside,  sere  leaves  were  whirling  in  grey  fun 
nels  of  dust,  the  intense  blue  bay  sparkled  under 
the  cobalt  sky;  and,  leaving  Marlboro  Street  with 
a  hand  on  her  bonnet,  she  ran  directly  into  Honora 
Canderay. 

"Oh!"  Olive  exclaimed,  breathless  and  slightly 
concerned.  "Indeed  if  I  saw  you,  Honora;  the 
wind  was  that  strong  pulling  at  a  person." 

[26] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

"What  does  it  matter?"  Honora  replied.  She 
was  wrapped  from  throat  to  hem  in  a  cinnamon 
colored  velvet  cloak  that,  fluttering,  showed  a  lining 
of  soft,  quilted  yellow.  In  the  flood  of  morning 
her  skin  was  flawless;  her  delicate  lips  and  hazel 
eyes  held  the  faint  mockery  that  was  the  visible 
sign  of  her  disturbing  quality.  She  laid  a  hand, 
in  a  short,  furred  kid  glove,  on  Olive's  arm. 

"I  am  so  pleased  about  Jason's  success,"  she 
continued,  in  a  clear  insistent  voice.  "You  must 
be  mad  with  anxiety  to  have  him  back.  It's  the 
most  romantic  thing  in  the  world.  Aren't  you 
thrilled  to  the  soul?" 

"I'm  glad  to — to  know  he's  been  preserved," 
Olive  stammered,  confused  by  Honora's  frank 
speech. 

"You  sound  exactly  as  if  he  were  a  jar  of 
quinces,"  the  other  answered  impatiently;  "and  not 
a  true  lover  coming  back  from  California  with  bags 
of  gold." 

Olive's  confusion  deepened  to  painful  embar 
rassment  at  the  indelicate  term  lover.  She  won 
dered,  hotly  red,  how  Honora  could  go  on  so,  and 
made  a  motion  to  continue  on  her  way.  But  the 
other's  fingers  closed  and  held  her.  "I  wonder, 
Olive,"  she  said  more  thoughtfully,  "if  I  know  you 
well  enough,  if  you  will  allow  me,  to  give  you  some 
advice.  It  is  this — don't  be  too  rigid  with  Jason 
when  he  gets  back.  For  nearly  ten  years  he's  been 
out  in  a  life  very  different  from  Cottarsport,  and  he 

[27] 


THE    DARK   FLEECE 

must  have  changed  in  that  time.  Here  we  stay 
almost  the  same — ten  or  twenty  or  fifty  years  is 
nothing  really.  The  fishing  boats  come  in,  they 
may  have  different  names,  but  they  are  the  same. 
We  stop  and  talk,  Honora  Canderay  and  Olive 
Stanes,  and  years  before  and  years  later  women 
will  stand  here  and  do  the  same  with  beliefs  no 
wider  than  your  finger.  But  it  isn't  like  that  out 
side;  and  Jason  will  have  that  advantage  of  us — 
things  really  very  small,  but  which  have  always 
seemed  tremendous  here,  will  mean  no  more  to  him 
than  they  are  worth.  He  will  be  careless,  perhaps, 
of  your  most  cherished  ideas;  and,  if  you  are  to 
meet  him  fairly,  you  must  try  to  see  through  his 
eyes  as  well  as  your  own.  Truly  I  want  you  to  be 
happy,  Olive;  I  want  every  one  in  Cottarsport  to 
be  as  happy  ...  as  they  can." 

Olive's  embarrassment  increased:  it  was  impos 
sible  to  know  what  Honora  Canderay  meant  by  her 
last  words,  in  that  echoing  voice.  Nevertheless, 
her  independence  of  spirit,  the  long  nourished  tenets 
of  the  abhorrence  of  sin,  asserted  themselves  in  the 
face  of  even  Honora's  directions.  "I  trust,"  she 
replied  stiffly,  "that  Jason  has  been  given  grace  to 

walk  in  the  path  of  God "     She  stopped  with 

lips  parted,  her  breath  laboring  with  shock,  at  the 
interruption  pronounced  in  ringing  accents.     Hon 
ora  Canderay  said: 
"Grace  be  damned!" 

Olive  backed  away  with  her  hands  pressed  to  her 
[28] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

cheeks.  In  the  midst  of  her  shuddering  surprise 
she  realized  how  much  the  other  resembled  her 
father,  the  captain. 

"I  suppose,"  Honora  further  ventured,  "that 
you  are  looking  for  a  bolt  of  lightning,  but  it  is 
late  in  the  season  for  that.  There  are  no  thun 
der  storms  to  speak  of  after  September."  She 
turned  abruptly,  and  Olive  watched  her  depart, 
gracefully  swaying  against  the  wind. 

All  Olive's  unformed  opinions  and  attitude  con 
cerning  Honora  Canderay  crystallized  into  one 
sharp,  intelligible  feeling — dislike.  The  breadth 
of  being  which  the  other  had  seemed  to  possess  was 
now  revealed  as  nothing  more  than  a  lack  of  rever 
ence.  She  was  inexpressibly  upset  by  Honora's 
profanity,  the  blasphemous  mind  it  exhibited,  her 
attempted  glossing  of  sin.  It  was  nothing  less. 
In  the  assault  on  Olive's  most  fundamental  verities 
— the  contempt  which,  she  divined,  had  been  offered 
to  the  edifice  of  her  conscience  and  creed — she  re 
sponded  blindly,  instinctively,  with  an  overwhelm 
ing  condemnation.  At  the  same  time  she  was 
frightened,  and  hurried  away  from  the  proximity 
of  such  unsanctified  talk.  She  did  not  go  to  Citron 
Street,  and  the  shops,  as  she  had  intended ;  but  kept 
directly  on  until  she  found  herself  at  the  harbor 
and  wharves.  The  latter  serrated  the  water's  edge, 
projecting  from  the  relatively  tall,  bald  warehouses, 
reeking  with  the  odor  of  dead  fish,  cut  open  and 

[29] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

laid  in  salt,  grey-white  areas  to  the  sun  and  wind. 

A  small  group  of  men,  with  flat  bronzed  coun 
tenances  and  rough  furze  coats,  uneasily  stirred 
their  hats,  in  the  local  manner  of  saluting  women, 
and  turned  to  gaze  fixedly  at  her  as  she  passed. 
Even  in  her  perturbation  of  mind  she  was  conscious 
of  their  unusual  scrutiny.  She  couldn't,  now,  for 
the  life  of  her,  recall  what  needed  to  be  bought; 
and,  mounting  the  narrow  uneven  way  from  the 
water,  she  proceeded  home. 

Some  towels,  laid  on  the  boulder  to  dry,  had  not 
been  sufficiently  weighted,  and  hung  blown  and 
crumpled  on  a  lilac  bush.  These  she  collected, 
rearranged,  complaining  of  the  blindness  of  who 
ever  might  be  about  the  house,  and  then  proceeded 
within.  There,  to  her  amazement,  she  found 
Hester,  in  the  middle  of  the  morning,  and  Rhoda 
bent  over  the  dinner  table,  sobbing  into  her  arm. 
Hester  met  her  with  a  drawn  face  darkly  smudged 
beneath  the  eyes. 

"The  Emerald  was  lost  off  the  Cape,"  she  said; 
"sunk  with  all  on  board.  A  man  came  over  from 
Salem  to  tell  us.  He  had  to  go  right  back.  Pa, 
he's  lost." 

Olive  sank  into  a  chair  with  limp  hands. 
Rhoda  continued  uninterrupted  her  sobbing,  while 
Hester  went  on  with  her  recital  in  a  thin,  blank 
voice.  "The  ship  /.  Q.  Adams  stood  by  the  Em 
erald,  but  there  was  such  a  sea  running  she  couldn't 
do  anything  else.  They  just  had  to  see  the  Em- 

[30] 


THE    DARK   FLEECE 

erald,  with  the  men  in  the  rigging,  go  under. 
That's  what  he  said  who  was  here.  They  just 
had  to  see  Pa  drown  before  their  eyes.  .  .  .  The 
wind  was  something  terrible. " 

A  deep,  dry  sorrow  constricted  Olive's  heart. 
Suddenly  the  details  of  packing  her  father's  blue 
sea  chest  returned  to  her  mind — the  wool  socks  she 
had  knitted  and  carefully  folded  in  the  bottom,  the 
needles  and  emery  and  thread  stowed  in  their  scar 
let  bag,  the  tin  of  goose  grease  for  his  throat,  the 
Bible  that  had  been  shipped  so  often.  She  thought 
of  them  all  scattered  and  rent  in  the  wild  sea,  of 
her  father 

She  forced  herself  to  rise,  with  a  set  face,  and 
put  her  hand  on  Rhoda's  shoulder.  "It's  right  to 
mourn,  like  Rachel,  but  don't  forget  the  majesty 
of  God."  Rhoda  shook  off  her  palm  and  continued 
in  an  ecstasy  of  emotional  relief.  Olive  hardened. 
"Get  up,"  she  commanded;  "we  must  fix  things 
here,  for  the  neighbors  and  Pastor  will  be  in.  I 
wish  Jem  were  back." 

At  this  Rhoda  became  even  more  unrestrained, 
and  Olive  remembered  that  Jem  too  was  at  sea, 
and  that  probably  he  had  been  caught  in  the  same 
gale.  "He'll  be  all  right,"  she  added  quickly;  "the 
fishing  boats  live  through  everything." 

Yet  she  was  infinitely  relieved  when,  two  days 
later,  Jem  arrived  safely  home.  He:  came  into  the 
house  with  a  pounding  of  heavy  boots,  a  power 
fully  built  youth  with  a  rugged  jaw  and  an  intent 

[31] 


THE    DARK   FLEECE 

quiet  gaze.  "I  heard  at  the  wharf,"  he  told  Olive. 
They  were  in  the  kitchen,  and  he  pulled  off  his 
boots  and  set  them  away  from  the  stove. 

"I'm  thankful  you're  so  steady  and  able,"  she 
said. 

"I  am  glad  Jason's  coming  home — rich,"  he 
replied  tersely.  Later,  after  supper,  while  they 
still  sat  at  the  table,  he  went  on,  "There  is  a  fine 
yawl  for  sale  at  Ipswich,  sails  ain't  been  made  a 
year,  fifty-five  tons;  I  could  do  right  good  with 
that.  The  fishing's  never  been  better.  Do  you 
think  Jason  would  be  content  to  buy  her,  Olive? 
I  could  pay  him  back  after  a  run  or  two." 

"He  told  you  he'd  do  something  like  that,"  she 
answered.  "I  guess  now  it  wouldn't  mean  much  to 
him." 

"And  I'll  be  away,"  Rhoda  eagerly  added;  "you 
wouldn't  have  to  give  me  anything,  Jem.  Jason 
promised  me,  too." 

An  unreasonable  and  disturbing  sense  of  inse 
curity  enveloped  Olive.  But,  of  course,  it  would 
be  all  right — Jason  was  coming  back  rich,  to  marry 
her.  Jem  would  have  the  yawl  and  Rhoda  get 
away  to  study  singing.  And  yet  all  that  she 
vaguely  dreaded  about  Jason  himself  persisted 
darkly  at  the  back  of  her  consciousness,  augmented 
by  Honora  Canderay's  warning.  She  was  a  little 
afraid  of  Jason,  too;  in  a  way,  after  so  long,  he 
seemed  like  a  stranger,  a  stranger  whom  she  was 
going  to  wed. 

[32] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

"He'll  be  all  dressed  up,"  Rhoda  stated.  "I 
hope,  Olive,  you  will  kiss  him  as  soon  as  he  steps 
through  the  door.  I  know  I  would." 

"Don't  be  so  shameless,  Rhoda,"  the  elder  ad 
monished  her.  "You  are  very  indelicate.  I'd 
never  think  of  kissing  Jason  like  that." 

"I  will  go  over  and  see  the  man  who  owns  her," 
Jem  said  enigmatically.  "She's  a  cockpit  boat, 
but  I  heard  the  wave  wasn't  made  that  could  fill 
her.  And  we  have  my  share  of  the  last  run  till 
Jason's  here." 

He  paid  this  faithfully  into  Olive's  hand  the 
next  day  and  then  disappeared.  She  thought  he 
came  through  the  door  again:  someone  stood  be 
hind  her.  Olive  turned  slowly  and  saw  an  im 
pressive  figure  in  stiff  black  broadcloth  and  an  in 
credibly  high  glassy  silk  hat. 

She  knew  instinctively  that  it  must  be  Jason 
Burrage,  and  yet  the  feeling  of  strangeness  per 
sisted.  All  sense  of  the  time  which  had  elapsed 
since  Jason  went  was  lost  in  the  illusion  that  the 
figure  familiar  to  her  through  years  of  knowledge 
and  association  had  instantly,  by  a  species  of  magic, 
been  transformed  into  the  slightly  smiling,  elab 
orate  man  in  the  doorway.  She  stepped  backward, 
hesitatingly  pronouncing  his  name. 

"Olive,"  he  exclaimed,  with  a  deep,  satisfied 
breath,  "it  hasn't  changed  a  particle!"  To  her 
extreme  relief  he  did  not  make  a  move  to  embrace 

[33] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

her;  but  gazed  intently  about  the  room.  One  of 
the  things  that  made  him  seem  different,  she  real 
ized,  was  the  rim  of  whiskers  framing  his  lower 
face.  She  became  conscious  of  details  of  his  ap 
pearance — baggy  dove-colored  trousers  over  glazed 
boots,  a  quince  yellow  waistcoat  in  diamond  pat 
tern,  a  cluster  of  seals.  Then  her  attention  was 
held  by  his  countenance,  and  she  saw  that  his 
clothes  were  only  an  insignificant  part  of  his  real 
difference  from  the  man  she  had  known. 

Jason  Burrage  had  always  had  a  set  will,  the 
reputation  of  an  impatient,  even  ugly  disposition. 
This  had  been  marked  by  a  sultry  lip  and  flickering 
eye;  but  now,  though  his  expression  was  noticeably 
quieter,  it  gave  her  the  impression  of  a  glittering 
and  dangerous  reserve;  his  masklike  calm  was 
totally  other  than  the  mobile  face  she  had  known. 
Then,  too,  he  had  grown  much  older — she  swiftly 
computed  his  age:  it  could  not  be  more  than  forty- 
two,  yet  his  hair  was  thickly  stained  with  grey,  lines 
starred  the  corners  of  his  eyes  and  drew  faintly  at 
his  mouth. 

"Are  you  glad  to  see  me,  Olive?"  he  asked. 

"Why,  Jason,  what  an  unnecessary  question. 
Of  course  I  am,  more  thankful  than  I  can  say  for 
your  safety." 

"I  walked  across  the  hills  from  the  Dumner 
stage,"  he  proceeded.  "It  was  something  to  see 
Cottarsport  on  its  bay  and  the  Neck  and  the  fishing 
boats  at  Planger's  wharf.  I'd  like  to  have  an 

[34] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

ounce  of  gold  for  every  time  I  thought  about  it  and 
pictured  it  and  you.  Out  on  the  placers  of  the 
Calaveras,  or  the  Feather,  I  got  to  believing  there 
wasn't  any  such  town,  but  here  it  is."  He  ad 
vanced  toward  her;  she  realized  that  she  was  about 
to  be  kissed,  and  a  painful  color  dyed  her 
cheeks. 

" You'll  stop  for  supper,"  she  said  practically. 

"I  haven't  been  home  yet,  I  came  right  here; 
I'll  see  them  and  be  back.  I'll  bet  I  find  them  in 
the  kitchen,  with  the  front  stoves  cold,  in  spite  of 
what  I  wrote  and  sent.  I  brought  you  a  present, 
just  for  fun,  and  I'll  leave  it  now,  since  it's  heavy." 
He  bent  over  a  satchel  at  his  feet  and  got  a  buck 
skin  bag,  bigger  than  his  two  fists,  which  he 
dropped  with  a  dull  thud  on  the  table. 

"What  is  it,  Jason?"  she  asked.  But  of  herself 
she  knew  the  answer.  He  untied  a  string,  and, 
dipping  in  his  fingers,  showed  her  a  fine  yellow 
metallic  trickle.  "Gold  dust,  two  tumblers  full," 
he  replied.  "We  used  to  measure  it  that  way — a 
pinch  a  dollar,  teaspoonful  to  the  ounce,  a  wine 
glass  holds  a  hundred,  and  a  tumbler  a  thousand 
dollars." 

She  was  breathless  before  the  small  shapeless 
pouch  that  held  such  a  staggering  amount.  He 
laughed.  "Why,  Olive,  it's  nothing  at  all.  I  just 
brought  it  like  that  so  you  could  see  how  we  car 
ried  it  in  California.  We  are  all  rich  now,  Olive 
— the  Burrages,  and  you're  one,  and  the  Staneses. 

[35] 


THE    DARK   FLEECE 

I   have   close   to   a    hundred  and   fifty   thousand 
dollars." 

This  sum  was  little  more  to  her  than  a  fable,  a 
thing  beyond  the  scope  of  her  comprehension;  but 
the  two  thousand  dollars  before  her  gaze  was  a 
miracle  made  manifest.  There  it  was  to  study, 
feel;  subconsciously  she  inserted  her  hand  in  the 
bag,  into  the  cold,  smooth  particles. 

"A  hundred  and  fifty  thousand,"  he  repeated; 
"but  if  you  think  I  didn't  work  for  it,  if  you  sup 
pose  I  picked  it  right  out  of  a  pan  on  the  river 
bars,  why — why,  you  are  wrong."  Words  failed 
him  to  express  the  erroneousness  of  such  conclu 
sions.  "I  slaved  like  a  Mexican,"  he  added;  "and 
in  bad  luck  almost  to  the  end."  She  sat  and 
gazed  at  him  with  an  easier  air  and  a  growing 
interest,  her  hands  clasped  in  her  lap.  "What  I 
didn't  know  when  I  left  Cottarsport  was  wonderful. 

"Why,  take  the  mining,"  he  said  with  a  gesture; 
"I  mean  the  bowl  mining  at  first  .  .  .  just  the 
heavy  work  in  it  killed  off  most  of  the  prospectors 
— all  day  with  a  big  iron  pan,  half  full  of  clay  and 
gravel,  sloshing  about  in  those  rivers.  And  maybe 
you'd  work  a  month  without  a  glimmer,  waking 
wet  and  cold  under  the  sierras,  whirling  the  pan 
round  and  round;  and  maybe  when  you  had  the 
iron  cleared  out  with  a  magnet,  and  dropped  in 
the  quicksilver,  what  gold  was  there  wouldn't 
amalgam.  I  can  tell  you,  Olive,  only  the  best,  or 
the  hardest,  came  through." 

[36] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

He  produced  a  blunt,  tapering  cigar  and  lighted 
it  expansively. 

"A  lonely  and  dangerous  business:  every  one 
carried  his  dust  right  on  his  body,  and  there  were 
plenty  would  risk  a  shot  at  a  miner  coming  back 
solitary  with  his  donkey  and  his  pile.  It  got 
better  when  the  new  methods  came,  and  we  used 
a  rocker  hollowed  out  of  a  log.  Then  four  of  us 
went  in  partnership — one  to  dig  the  gravel,  one  to 
carry  it  to  the  cradle,  another  to  keep  it  rocking, 
and  the  last  to  pour  in  the  water.  Then  we  drawed 
off  the  gold  and  sand  through  a  plug  hole. 

"We  did  fine  at  that,"  he  told  her,  "and  in  the 
fall  of  'Fifty  cleaned  up  eighteen  thousand  apiece. 
Then  we  had  an  argument:  we  were  in  the  Yuba 
country,  where  it  was  kind  of  bad;  two  of  us,  and 
I  was  one  of  them,  said  to  divide  the  dust,  and  get 
out  best  we  could;  but  the  others  wanted  to  send 
all  the  gold  to  San  Francisco  in  charge  of  one  of 
them  and  a  man  who  was  going  down  with  more 
dust.  We  finally  agreed  to  this  and  lost  every 
ounce  we'd  mined.  The  escort  said  they  were  shot 
by  some  of  the  disbanded  California  army,  but  I'm 
not  sure.  It  seemed  to  me  like  our  two  had  met 
somewhere,  killed  the  other,  and  got  the  gold  to 
rights." 

"O  Jason!"  Olive  exclaimed. 

"That  was  nothing,"  he  said  complacently;  "but 
only  a  joker  to  start  with.  I  did  a  lot  of  things 
then  to  get  a  new  outfit — sold  peanuts  on  the  Plaza 

[37] 


THE    DARK   FLEECE 

in  'Frisco,  or  hollered  the  New  York  Tribune  at 
a  dollar  and  a  half  a  copy;  I  washed  glasses  in  a 
saloon  and  drove  mules.  After  that  I  took  a 
steamer  for  Stocton  and  the  Calaveras.  You  ought 
to  have  seen  Stocton,  Olive — board  shanties  and 
blanket  houses  and  tents,  with  two  thieves  left 
hanging  on  a  gallows.  We  went  from  there,  a 
party  of  us,  for  the  north  bank  of  the  Calaveras, 
tramping  in  dust  so  hot  that  it  scorched  your  face. 
Sluicing  had  just  started  and  long  Toms — a  long 
Tom  is  a  short  placer — so  we  didn't  know  much 
about  it.  Looking  back  I  can  see  the  gold  was 
there;  but  after  working  right  up  to  the  end  of  the 
season  we  had  no  more  than  a  couple  of  thousand 
apiece.  There  were  too  many  of  us  to  start  with. 

"Well,  I  drifted  back  to  San  Francisco."  He 
paused,  and  the  expression  which  had  most  dis 
turbed  her  deepened  on  his  countenance,  a  stillness 
like  the  marble  of  a  gravestone  guarding  implacable 
secrets. 

"San  Francisco  is  different  from  Cottarsport, 
Olive,"  he  said  after  a  little.  "Here  you  wouldn't 
believe  there  was  such  a  place;  and  there  Cottars- 
port  seemed  too  safe  to  be  true  .  .  .  Well,  I  went 
after  it  again,  this  time  as  far  north  as  Shasta.  I 
prospected  from  the  Shasta  country  south,  and  got 
a  good  lump  together  again.  By  then  placer  min 
ing  was  better  understood ;  we  had  sluice  boxes  two 
or  three  hundred  feet  long,  connected  with  the 
streams,  with  strips  nailed  across  the  bottom  where 

[38] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

the  gold  and  sand  settled  as  the  water  ran 
through.  Yes,  I  did  well;  and  then  fluming  began. 

"That,"  he  explained,  "is  damming  a  river 
around  its  bed  and  washing  the  opened  gravel.  It 
takes  a  lot  of  money,  a  lot  of  work  and  men;  and 
sometimes  it  pays  big,  and  often  it  doesn't.  I 
guess  there  were  fifty  of  us  at  it.  We  slaved  all 
the  dry  season  at  the  dam  and  flume,  a  big  wood 
course  for  the  stream;  we  had  wing  dams  for  the 
placers  and  ditches,  and  the  best  prospects  for 
eight  or  ten  weeks'  washing.  It  was  early  in 
September  when  we  were  ready  to  start,  and  on  a 
warm  afternoon  I  said  to  an  old  pardner,  'What 
do  you  make  out  of  those  big,  black  clouds  settling 
on  the  peaks?'  He  took  one  look — the  wind  was 
a  steady  and  muggy  southwester — and  then  he 
sat  down  and  cried.  The  tears  rolled  right  over 
his  beard. 

"It  was  the  rains,  nearly  two  months  early,  and 
the  next  day  dams,  flume,  boards,  and  hope  boiled 
down  past  us  in  a  brown  mash.  That  left  me 
poorer  than  I'd  ever  been  before;  I  had  more  when 
I  was  home  on  the  wharves." 

"Wait,"  she  interrupted  him,  rising;  "if  you're 
coming  back  to  supper  I  must  put  the  draught  on 
the  stove."  From  the  kitchen  she  heard  him  sing 
ing  in  a  low,  contented  voice : 

"  The  pilot  bread  was  in  my  mouth, 
The  gold  dust  in  my  eye, 

[39] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

And  though  from  you  I'm  far  away, 
Dear  Anna,  don't  you  cry!'" 

Then: 

"'Oh,  Ann  Eliza! 
Don't  you  cry  for  me. 
I'm  going  to  Calaveras 
With  my  wash  bowl  on  my  knee.'  " 

She  returned  and  resumed  her  position  with  her 
hands  folded. 

"And  that,"  Jason  Burrage  told  her,  "was  how 
I  learned  gold  mining  in  California.  I  sank 
shafts,  too,  and  worked  a  windlass  till  the  holes 
got  so  deep  they  had  to  be  timbered  and  the  ore 
needed  a  crusher.  But  after  the  fluming  I  knew 
what  to  wait  for.  I  kept  going  in  a  sort  of  com 
merce  for  a  while — buying  old  outfits  and  selling 
them  again  to  the  late  comers — a  pick  or  shovel 
would  bring  ten  dollars  and  long  boots  fifty  dol 
lars  a  pair.  I  got  twenty-four  dollars  for  a  box  of 
Seidlitz  powders.  Then  in  'Fifty-four  I  went  in 
with  three  scientific  men — one  had  been  a  big 
chemist  at  Paris — and  things  took  a  turn.  We  had 
the  dead  wood  on  gold.  Why,  we  did  nothing  but 
re-travel  the  American  Fork  and  Indian  Bar,  the 
Casumnec  and  Moquelumne,  and  work  the  tailings 
the  earlier  miners  had  piled  up  and  left,  just  like 
I  had  south.  We  did  some  pretty  things  with 
cyanide;  yes,  and  hydraulics  and  powder. 

"Things  took  a  turn,"  he  repeated;  "investments 
in  stampers  and  so  on,  and  here  I  am." 

[40] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

After  he  had  gone — supper,  she  had  informed 
him,  was  at  five  exactly — Olive  had  the  bewildered 
feeling  of  partially  waking  from  an  extraordinary 
dream.  Yet  the  buckskin  bag  on  the  table  pos 
sessed  a  weighty  actuality. 


She  sat  for  a  long  while  gazing  intently  at  the 
gold,  which,  like  a  crystal  ball,  held  for  her  varied 
reflections.  Then,  recalling  the  exigencies  of  the 
kitchen,  she  hurried  abruptly  away.  Her  thoughts 
wheeled  about  Jason  Burrage  in  a  confusion  of  all 
the  impressions  she  had  ever  had  of  him.  But  try 
as  she  might  she  could  not  picture  the  present  man 
as  a  part  of  her  life  in  Cottarsport;  she  could  not 
see  herself  married  to  him,  although  that  event 
waited  just  beyond  today.  She  set  her  lips  in  a 
straight  line,  a  fixed  purpose  gave  her  courage  in 
place  of  the  timidity  inspired  by  Jason's  opulent 
strangeness — she  couldn't  allow  herself  to  be  turned 
aside  for  a  moment  from  the  way  of  righteousness. 
The  gods  of  mammon,  however  they  might  blackly 
assault  her  spirit,  should  be  confounded. 

".  .  .  hide  me 
Till  the  storm  of  life  is  past." 

She  sang  in  a  high  quavering  voice.  There  was 
a  stir  beyond — surely  Jason  wasn't  back  so  soon; 
but  it  was  Jem. 

"What's  on  the  table  here?"  he  called. 

"You  let  that  be,"  she  cried  back  in  a  panic  at 
[41] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

having  left  the  gift  so  exposed.     "That's  gold  dust; 
Jason  brought  it,  two  thousand  dollars'  worth." 

A  prolonged  whistle  followed  her  announcement. 
Jem  appeared  with  the  buckskin  bag  in  his  hand. 
"Why,  here's  two  yawls  right  in  my  hand,"  he 
asserted. 

"Mind  one  thing,  Jem,"  she  went  on,  "he's 
coming  back  for  supper,  and  I  won't  have  you  and 
Rhoda  at  him  about  boats  and  singing  the  minute 
he's  in  the  house." 

Rhoda,  with  exclamations,  and  then  Hester,  in 
spected  the  gold.  "I'd  slave  five  years  for  that," 
the  latter  stated,  "and  then  hardly  get  it;  and  here 
you  have  it  for  nothing." 

"You'll  get  the  good  of  it  too,  Hester,"  Olive 
told  her. 

"I'll  just  work  for  what  I  get,"  she  replied 
fiercely.  "I  won't  take  a  penny  from  Jason,  Olive 
Stanes ;  you  can't  hold  that  over  me,  and  the  sooner 
you  both  know  it  the  better." 

"You  ought  to  pray  to  be  saved  from  pride." 
"I   don't  ask  benefits  from  any  one,"   Hester 
stoutly  observed. 

"Hester "  Olive  commenced,  scandalized,  but 

she  stopped  at  Jason's  entrance.    "Hester  she  wanted 
a  share  of  the  gold,"  Jem  declared  with  a  light 
in  his  slow  gaze,  "and  Olive  was  cursing  at  her." 
"Lots  more,"  said  Jason  Burrage,  "buckets  full." 
In  spite  of  the  efforts  of  every  one  to  be  com 
pletely  at  ease  the  supper  was  unavoidably  stiff. 

[42] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

But  when  Jason  had  lighted  one  of  his  blunt  cigars, 
and  begun  a  vivid  description  of  western  life,  the 
Staneses  were  transported  by  the  marvels  following 
one  upon  another:  a  nugget  had  been  picked  up 
over  a  foot  long,  it  weighed  a  hundred  and  ninety 
pounds,  and  realized  forty-three  thousand  dollars. 
"Why,  fifty  and  seventy-five  lumps  were  common," 
he  asserted.  "At  Ford's  Bar  a  man  took  out  seven 
hundred  dollars  a  day  for  near  a  month.  Another 
found  seventeen  thousand  dollars  in  a  gutter  two 
or  three  feet  deep  and  not  a  hundred  yards  long. 

"But  'Frisco  was  the  place;  you  could  see  it 
spread  in  a  day  with  warehouses  on  the  water  and 
tents  climbing  up  every  hill.  Happy  Valley,  on 
the  beach,  couldn't  hold  another  rag  house.  The 
Parker  House  rented  for  a  hundred  and  seventy 
thousand  a  year,  and  most  of  it  paid  for  gambling 
privileges;  monte  and  faro,  blazing  lights  and  brass 
bands  everywhere  and  dancing  in  the  El  Dorado 
saloon.  At  first  the  men  danced  with  each  other, 
but  later " 

He  stopped;  an  awkward  silence  followed. 
Olive  was  rigid  with  inarticulate  protest,  a  sense 
of  outrage — gambling,  saloons,  and  dancing !  All 
that  she  had  feared  about  Jason  became  more  con 
crete,  more  imminent.  She  saw  California  as  a 
modern  Babylon,  a  volcano  of  gold  and  vice; 
already  she  had  heard  of  great  fires  that  had 
devastated  it. 

"We  didn't  mine  on  Sunday,  Olive,"  Jason 
[43] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

assured  her;  "and  all  the  boys  went  to  the  preaching 
and  sang  the  hymns,  standing  out  on  the  grass." 

Hester,  finally,  with  a  muttered  period,  rose  and 
disappeared;  Jem  went  out  to  consult  with  a  man, 
his  nod  to  Olive  spoke  of  yawls;  and  Rhoda,  at 
last,  reluctantly  made  her  way  above.  Olive's  un 
easiness  increased  when  she  found  herself  alone 
with  the  man  she  was  to  marry. 

"I  don't  like  Rhoda  and  Jem  hearing  about  all 
that  wickedness,"  she  told  Jason  Burrage;  "they 
are  young  and  easy  affected.  Rhoda  gives  me  a 
lot  of  worry  as  it  is." 

"Suppose  we  forget  them,"  he  suggested.  "I 
haven't  had  a  word  with  you  yet;  that  is,  about 
ourselves.  I  don't  even  know  but  you  have  gone 
and  fell  in  love  with  some  one  else." 

"Jason,"  she  answered,  "how  can  you?  I  told 
you  I'd  marry  you,  and  I  will." 

"Are  you  glad  to  see  me?"  he  demanded,  coming 
closer  and  capturing  her  hand. 

"Why,  what  a  question.  Of  course  I'm  pleased 
you're  back  and  safe." 

"You  haven't  got  a  headache,  have  you?"  he  in 
quired  jocularly. 

"No,"  she  replied  seriously.  His  words,  his 
manners,  his  grasp,  worried  her  more  and  more. 
Still,  she  reminded  herself,  she  must  be  patient, 
accept  life  as  it  had  been  ordained.  There  was  a 
slight  flutter  at  her  heart,  a  constriction  of  her 
throat;  and  she  wondered  if  this  were  love.  She 

[44] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

should,  she  felt,  exhibit  more  warmth  at  Jason's 
return,  the  preservation,  through  such  turbulent 
years  of  absence,  of  her  image.  But  it  was  be 
yond  her  power  to  force  her  hand  to  return  his 
pressure:  her  fingers  lay  still  and  cool  in  his  grasp. 

"You  are  just  the  same,  Olive,"  he  told  her;  "and 
I'm  glad  you're  what  you  are,  and  that  Cottarsport 
is  what  it  is.  That's  why  I  came  back:  it  was  in 
my  blood,  the  old  town  and  you.  All  the  time  I 
kept  thinking  of  when  I'd  come  back  rich  as  I 
made  up  my  mind  to  be,  and  get  you  what  you; 
ought  to  have — be  of  some  importance  in  Cottars- 
port,  like  the  Canderays.  The  old  captain,  too, 
died  while  I  was  away.  How's  Honora?" 

"Honora  Canderay  is  an  ungodly  woman," 
Olive  asserted  with  emphasis. 

"I  don't  know  anything  about  that,"  he  said; 
"but  I  always  kind  of  liked  to  look  at  her.  She 
reminded  me  of  a  schooner  with  everything  set 
coming  up  brisk  into  the  wind."  Olive  made  a 
motion  toward  the  stove,  but  he  restrained  her; 
rising,  he  put  in  fresh  wood.  Then  he  turned  and 
again  seemed  lost  in  a  long,  contented  inspection 
of  the  quiet  interior.  Olive  saw  that  marks  of 
weariness  shadowed  his  eyes. 

"This  is  what  I  came  back  for,"  he  reiterated; 
"peaceful  as  the  forests,  and  yet  warm  and  human. 
Blood  counts."  He  returned  to  his  place  by  her, 
and  leaned  forward,  very  earnestly.  "California 
isn't  real  the  way  this  is,"  he  told  her;  "the 

[45] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

women  were  just  paint  and  powder,  like  things  you 
would  see  in  a  fever,  and  then  you'd  wake  up,  in 
Cottarsport,  well  again,  with  you,  Olive." 

She  managed  to  smile  at  him  in  acknowledg 
ment  of  this. 

"I'm  desperately  glad  I  pulled  through  without 
many  scars.  But  there  are  some,  Olive;  that  was 
bound  to  be.  I  don't  know  if  a  man  had  better 
say  anything  about  the  past,  or  just  let  it  be,  and 
go  on.  Times  I  think  one  and  then  the  other. 
Yet  you  are  so  calm  sitting  here,  and  so  good,  it 
would  be  a  big  help  to  tell  you  .  .  .  Olive,  out  on 
the  American,  and  God  knows  how  sorry  I've  been, 
I  killed  a  man,  Olive." 

Slowly  she  felt  herself  turning  icy  cold,  except 
for  the  hot  blood  rushing  into  her  head.  She 
stared  at  him  for  a  moment,  horrified;  and  then 
mechanically  drew  back,  scraping  the  chair  across 
the  floor.  Perhaps  she  hadn't  understood,  but 
certainly  he  had  said 

"Wait  till  I  tell  what  I  can  for  myself,"  he  hur 
ried  on,  following  her.  "It  was  when  the  four  of 
us  were  working  with  a  rocker.  I  was  shoveling 
the  gravel,  and  every  one  in  California  knows  that 
when  you're  doing  that,  and  find  a  nugget  over 
half  an  ounce,  it  belongs  to  you  personal  and  not 
to  the  partnership.  Well,  I  came  on  a  big  one, 
and  laid  it  away — they  all  saw  it — and  then  this 
Eddie  Lukens  hid  it  out  on  me.  He  was  the  only 
one  near  where  I  had  it;  he  broke  it  up  and  put 

[46] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

it  in  the  cradle,  sure;  and  in  the  talk  that  followed 
I — I  shot  him." 

He  laid  a  detaining  hand  on  her  shoulder,  but 
she  wrenched  herself  away. 

"Don't  touch  me!"  she  breathed.  She  thought 
she  saw  him  bathed  in  the  blood  of  the  man  he 
had  slain.  Her  lips  formed  a  sentence,  "  'Thou 
shalt  not  kill.'  " 

"I  was  tried  at  Spanish  Bar,"  he  continued. 
"Miners'  law  is  better  than  you  hear  in  the  East. 
It's  quick,  it  has  to  be,  but  in  the  main  it's  serious 
and  right.  I  was  tried  with  witnesses  and  a  jury 
and  they  let  me  off;  they  justified  me.  That  ought 
to  go  for  something." 

"Don't  come  near  me,"  she  cried,  choking,  filled 
with  dread  and  utter  loathing.  "How  can  you 
stand  there  and — stand  there,  a  murderer,  with  a 
life  on  your  heart ! " 

His  face  quivered  with  concern;  in  spite  of  her 
words  he  drew  near  her  again,  repeating  the  fact 
that  he  had  been  judged,  released.  Olive  Stanes' 
hysteria  vanished  before  the  cold  stability  which 
came  to  her  assistance,  the  sense  of  being  rooted 
in  her  creed. 

"  'Thou  shalt  not  kill,'  "  she  echoed. 

The  emotion  faded  from  his  features,  his  coun 
tenance  once  more  became  masklike,  the  jaw  was 
hard  and  sharp,  his  eyes  narrowed.  "It's  all  over 
then?"  he  asked.  She  nodded,  her  lips  pinched 
into  a  white  line. 

[47] 


THE    DARK   FLEECE 

"What  else  could  be  hoped?  Blood  guiltiness. 
O  Jason,  pray  to  save  your  soul." 

He  moved  over  to  where  his  high  silk  hat  re 
posed,  secured  it,  and  turned.  "This  will  be 
final."  His  voice  was  hard.  Olive  stood  slightly 
swaying,  with  closed  eyes.  Then  she  remembered 
the  buckskin  bag  of  not  yellow  but  scarlet  gold. 
She  stumbled  forward  to  it  and  thrust  the  weight 
into  his  hand.  Jason  Burrage's  fingers  closed  on 
the  gift,  while  his  gaze  rested  on  her  from  under 
contracted  brows.  He  was,  it  seemed,  about  to 
speak,  but  instead  preserved  an  intense  silence;  he 
looked  once  more  about  the  room,  still  and  old  in 
its  lamplight.  Why  didn't  he  go?  Then  she  saw 
that  she  was  alone: 

Like  the  eternal  rock  outside  the  door. 

From  above  came  the  clear,  joyous  voice  of 
Rhoda  singing.  Olive  crumpled  into  a  chair. 
Soon  Jem  would  be  back.  .  .  .  She  turned  and 
slipped  down  upon  the  floor  in  an  agony  of  prayer. 


[48] 


HONORA 


HONORA  CANDERAY  saw  Jason  Bur- 
rage  on  the  day  after  his  arrival  in  Cot- 
tarsport:  he  was  walking  through  the 
town  with  a  set,  inattentive  countenance;  and,  al 
though  she  was  in  the  carriage  and  leaned  for 
ward,  speaking  in  her  ringing  voice,  it  was  evident 
that  he  had  not  noticed  her.  She  thought  his  ex 
pression  gloomy  for  a  man  returned  with  a  fortune 
to  his  marriage.  Honora  still  dwelt  upon  him  as 
she  slowly  progressed  through  the  capricious  streets 
and  mounted  toward  the  hills  beyond.  He  pre 
sented,  she  decided,  an  extraordinary,  even  faintly 
comic,  appearance  in  Cottarsport,  with  a  formal 
black  coat  open  on  a  startling  waistcoat  and  op 
pressive  gold  chain,  pale  trousers  and  a  silk  hat. 
Such  clothes,  theatrical  in  effect,  were  inevitable 
to  his  changed  condition  and  necessarily  station 
ary  taste.  Yet,  considering,  she  shifted  the  thea 
trical  to  dramatic :  in  an  obscure  but  palpable  man 
ner  Jason  did  not  seem  cheap.  He  never  had  in 
the  past.  And  now,  while  his  inappropriate  over 
dressing  in  the  old  town  of  loose  and  weathered 
raiment  brought  a  smile  to  her  firm  lips,  there  was 
still  about  him  the  air  which  from  the  beginning 

[SI] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

had  made  him  more  noticeable  than  his  fellows. 
It  had  even  been  added  to — by  the  romance  of  his 
journey  and  triumph. 

She  suddenly  realized  that,  by  chance,  she  had 
stumbled  on  the  one  term  which  more  than  any 
other  might  contain  Jason.  Romantic.  Yes,  that 
was  'the  explanation  of  his  power  to  stir  always  an 
interest  in  him,  vaguely  suggest  such  possibilities 
as  he  had  finally  accomplished,  the  venture  to 
California  and  return  with  gold  and  the  compli 
cated  watch  chain.  She  had  said  no  more  to  him 
than  to  the  other  Cottarsport  youth  and  young 
manhood,  perhaps  a  dozen  sentences  in  a  year; 
but  the  others  merged  into  a  composite  image  of 
fuzzy  chins,  reddened  knuckles,  and  inept,  choked 
speech,  and  Jason  Burrage  remained  a  slightly 
sullen  individual  with  potentialities.  He  had 
never  stayed  long  in  her  mind,  or  had  any  actual 
part  in  her  life — her  mother's  complete  indiffer 
ence  to  Cottarsport  had  put  a  barrier  between  its 
acutely  independent  spirit  and  the  Canderays — but 
she  had  been  easily  conscious  of  his  special  qual- 
ity. 

That  in  itself  was  no  novelty  to  her  experience  of 
a  metropolitan  and  distinguished  society:  what 
now  kept  Jason  in  her  thoughts  was  the  fact  that 
he  had  made  his  capability  serve  his  mood;  he 
had  taken  himself  out  into  the  world  and  there, 
with  what  he  was,  succeeded.  His  was  not  an  in 
effectual  condition — a  longing,  a  possibility  that, 

[52] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

without  the  power  of  accomplishment,  degenerated 
into  a  mere  attitude  of  bitterness.  Just  such  a 
state,  for  example,  as  enveloped  herself. 

The  carriage  had  climbed  out  of  Cottarsport,  to 
the  crown  of  the  height  under  which  it  lay,  and 
Honora  ordered  Coggs,  a  coachman  decrepit  with 
age,  to  stop.  She  half  turned  and  looked  down 
over  the  town  with  a  veiled,  introspective  gaze. 
From  here  it  was  hardly  more  than  a  narrow  rim 
of  roofs  about  the  bright  water,  broken  by  the 
white  bulk  of  her  dwelling  and  the  courthouse 
square.  The  hills,  turning  roundly  down,  were 
sere  and  showed  everywhere  the  grey  glint  of  rock; 
Cottar's  Neck  already  appeared  wintry;  a  dimin 
ished  wind,  drawing  in  through  the  Narrows,  flat 
tened  the  smoke  of  the  chimneys  below. 

Cottarsport ! 

The  word,  with  all  its  implications,  was  so  vivid 
in  her  mind  that  she  thought  she  must  have  spoken 
it  aloud.  Cottarsport  and  the  Canderays — now 
one  solitary  woman.  She  wondered  again  at  the 
curious  and  involved  hold  the  locality  had  upon 
her;  its  tyranny  over  her  birth  and  destiny.  It 
was  comparatively  easy  to  understand  the  influence 
the  place  had  exerted  on  her  father:  commencing 
with  his  sixteenth  year,  his  life  had  been  spent, 
until  his  retirement  from  the  sea,  in  arduous  voy 
ages  to  far  ports  and  cities.  His  first  command — 
the  anchor  had  been  weighed  on  his  twentieth  birth 
day — had  been  of  a  brig  to  Zanzibar  for  a  cargo 

[53] 


THE    DARK   FLEECE 

of  gum  copal;  his  last  a  storm-battered  journey 
about,  apparently,  all  the  perilous  capes  of  the 
world.  Then  he  had  been  near  fifty,  and  the  space 
between  was  a  continuous  record  of  struggle  with 
savage  and  faithless  peoples,  strange  latitudes  and 
currents,  and  burdensome  responsibilities. 

Her  mother,  too,  presented  no  insuperable  ob 
stacle  to  a  sufficient  comprehension — a  noted 
beauty  in  a  gay  and  self-indulgent  society,  she  had 
passed  through  a  triumphant  period  without  form 
ing  any  attachment.  An  inordinate  amount  of 
champagne  had  been  uncorked  in  her  honor,  com 
pliment  and  service  and  offers  had  made  up  her 
daily  round;  until,  almost  impossibly  exacting, 
she  had  found  herself  beyond  her  early  radiance, 
in  the  first  tragic  realization  of  decline.  Stopping, 
perhaps,  in  the  midst  of  slipping  her  elegance  of 
body  into  a  party  dress,  she  remembered  that  she 
was  thirty-five — just  Honora's  age  at  present. 
The  compliments  and  offers  had  lessened,  she  was 
in  a  state  of  weary  revulsion  when  Ithiel  Canderay 
— bronzed  and  despotic  and  rich — had  appeared 
before  her  and,  the  following  day,  urged  mar 
riage. 

Yes,  it  was  easy  to  see  why  the  shipmaster,  de 
sirous  of  peace  after  the  unpeaceful  sea,  should 
build  his  house  in  the  still,  old  port  the  tradition 
of  which  was  in  his  blood.  It  was  no  more  dif 
ficult  to  understand  how  his  wife,  always  a  little 
tired  now  from  the  beginning  ill  effects  of  ceaseless 

[54] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

balls  and  wining,  should  welcome  a  spacious,  quiet 
house  and  unflagging,  patient  care. 

All  this  was  clear ;  and,  in  a  way,  it  made  her  own 
position  logical — she  was  the  daughter,  the  reposi 
tory,  of  such  varied  and  yet  unified  forces.  In  mo 
ments  of  calm,  such  as  this,  Honora  could  be  suc 
cessfully  philosophical.  But  she  was  not  always 
placid;  in  fact  she  was  placid  but  an  insignificant 
part  of  her  waking  hours.  She  was  ordinarily  filled 
with  emotions  'that,  having  no  outlet,  kept  her 
stirred  up,  half  resentful,  and  half  desirous  of  things 
which  she  yet  made  no  extended  effort  to  obtain. 

Honora  told  herself  daily  that  she  detested  Cot- 
tarsport,  she  intended  to  sell  her  house,  give  it  to 
the  town,  and  move  to  Boston.  But,  after  three  or 
four  weeks  in  the  city,  a  sense  of  weariness  and 
nostalgia  would  descend  upon  her — the  bitterness 
of  her  mother  lived  over  again — and  drive  her 
back  to  the  place  she  had  left  with  such  decided 
expressions  of  relief. 

This  was  the  root  of  her  not  large  interest  in 
Jason  Burrage — he,  too,  she  had  always  felt,  had 
had  possibilities  outside  the  local  life  and  fish  in 
dustry;  and  he  had  gone  forth  and  justified,  real 
ized,  them.  He  had  broken  away  from  the  enor 
mous  pressure  of  custom,  personal  habit,  and  taken 
from  life  what  was  his.  But  she,  Honora  Cande- 
ray,  had  not  had  the  courage  to  free  herself  from 
an  existence  without  incentive,  without  reward. 
Something  of  this  might  commonly  find  excuse  in 

[55] 


THE    DARK   FLEECE 

the  fact  that  she  was  a  woman,  and  that  the  doors 
of  life  and  experience,  except  one,  were  closed  to 
her;  but,  individually,  she  had  little  use  for  this 
supine  attitude.  Her  blood  was  too  domineering. 
She  consigned  such  inhibitions  to  pale  creatures 
like  Olive  Stanes. 

The  sun,  sinking  toward  the  plum-colored  hills 
on  the  left,  cast  a  rosy  glow  over  low-piled  clouds 
at  the  far  horizon,  and  the  water  of  the  harbor 
seemed  scattered  with  the  petals  of  crimson  peonies. 
The  air  darkened  perceptibly.  For  a  moment  the 
grey  town  on  the  fading  water,  the  distant  flushed 
sky,  were  charged  with  the  vague  unrest  of  the 
flickering  day.  Suddenly  it  was  colder,  and  Hon- 
ora,  drawing  up  her  shawl,  sharply  commanded 
Coggs  to  drive  on. 

She  was  going  to  fetch  Paret  Fifield  from  the 
steam  railway  station  nearest  Cottarsport.  He 
visited  her  at  regular  intervals — although  the  usual 
period  had  been  doubled  since  she'd  seen  him — 
and  asked  her  with  unfailing  formality  to  be  his 
wife.  Why  she  hadn't  agreed  long  ago,  except 
that  Paret  was  Boston  personified,  she  did  not  un 
derstand.  In  the  moments  when  she  fled  to  the 
city  she  always  intended  to  have  him  come  to  her 
at  once.  But  hardly  had  she  arrived  before  her 
determination  would  waver,  and  her  thoughts  auto 
matically,  against  her  will,  return  to  Cottarsport. 

[56] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

Studying  him,  as  they  drove  back  through  the 
early  dusk,  she  was  surprised  that  he  had  been  so 
long-suffering.  He  was  not  a  patient  type  of  man ; 
rather  he  was  the  quietly  aggressive,  suavely  self 
ish  example  for  whom  the  world,  success,  had  been 
a  very  simple  matter.  He  was  not  solemn,  either, 
or  a  recluse,  as  faithful  lovers  commonly  were; 
but  furnished  a  leading  figure  in  the  cotillions  and 
'had  a  nice  capacity  for  wine.  She  said  almost 
complainingly: 

"How  young  and  gay  you  look,  Paret,  with  your 
lemon  verbena." 

He  was,  it  seemed  to  her,  not  entirely  at  ease, 
and  almost  confused  at  her  statement.  Neverthe 
less,  he  gave  his  person  a  swiftly  complacent 
glance. 

"I  do  seem  quite  well,"  he  agreed  surprisingly. 
"Honora,  I'm  the  next  thing  to  fifty.  Would  any 
one  guess  it?" 

This  was  a  new  aspect  of  Paret's,  and  she  stud 
ied  him  keenly,  with  the  slightly  satirical  mouth 
inherited  from  her  father.  Embarrassment  became 
evident  at  his  exhibition  of  trivial  pride,  and 
nothing  more  was  said  until,  winding  through  the 
gloom  of  Cottarsport,  they  had  reached  her  house. 
Inside  there  was  a  wide  hall  with  the  stair  mount 
ing  on  the  right  under  a  panelled  arch.  Mrs.  Coz- 
zens,  Honora's  aunt  and  companion,  was  in  the 
drawing  room  when  they  entered,  and  greeted  Paret 

[57] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

Fifield  with  the  simple  friendliness  which,  clearly 
without  disagreeable  intent,  she  reserved  for 
an  unquestionable  few. 

After  dinner,  the  elder  woman  winding  wool 
from  an  ivory  swift  clamped  to  a  table,  Honora 
thought  that  Paret  had  never  been  so  vivacious; 
positively  he  was  silly.  For  no  comprehensible 
reason  her  mind  turned  to  Jason  Burrage,  striding 
with  a  lowered  head,  in  his  incongruous  clothes, 
through  the  town  of  his  birth. 

"I  wonder,  Paret/'  she  remarked,  "if  you  remem 
ber  two  men  who  went  from  here  ,to  California 
about  ten  years  ago?  Well,  one  of  them  is  back 
with  his  pockets  full  of  gold  and  a  silk  hat.  He 
was  engaged  to  Olive  Stanes  ...  I  suppose  tfieir 
wedding  will  happen  at  any  time.  You  see,  he 
was  faithful  like  yourself,  Paret." 

The  man's  back  was  toward  her;  he  was  ex 
amining,  as  he  had  on  every  visit  Honora  could 
recall,  the  curious  objects  in  a  lacquered  cabinet 
brought  from  over-seas  by  Ithiel  Canderay,  and 
it  was  a  noticeably  long  time  before  he  turned. 
Mrs.  Cozzens,  the  Shetland  converted  into  a  ball, 
rose  and  announced  her  intention  of  retiring;  a  thjn, 
erect  figure  in  black  moire  with  a  long,  counte 
nance  and  agate  brown  eyes,  seed  pearls,,  gold  band 
bracelets,  and  a  Venise  point  cap. 

When  she  had  gone  the  silence  in  the  room  be 
came  oppressive.  Honora  was  thinking  of  her  life 
in  connection  with  Paret  Fifield,  wondering  if  she 

[58] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

could  ever  bring  herself  to  marry  him.  She  would 
have  to  decide  soon:  it  seemed  incredible  that  he 
was  nearing  fifty.  Why,  it  must  have  been  fifteen 
years  ago  when  he  first 

"Honora,"  he  pronounced,  leaning  forward  in 
his  chair,  "I  came  prepared  to  tell  you  a  particular 
thing,  but  I  find  it  much  more  difficult  than  I  had 
anticipated." 

"I  know,"  she  replied,  and  her  voice,  the  fact 
she  pronounced,  seemed  to  come  from  a  conscious 
ness  other  than  hers;  "you  are  going  to  get  mar 
ried." 

"Exactly,"  he  said  with  a  deep,  relieved  sigh. 

She  had  on  a  dinner  dress  looped  with  a  silk 
ball  fringe,  and  her  fingers  automatically  played 
with  the  hanging  ornaments  as  she  studied  him 
with  a  composed  face. 

"How  old  is  she,  Paret?"  Honora  asked  presently. 

He  cleared  his  throat  in  an  embarrassed  man 
ner.  "Not  quite  nineteen,  I  believe." 

She  nodded,  and  her  expression  grew  impercep 
tibly  colder.  A  slight  but  actual  irritation  at  him, 
a  palpable  anger,  shocked  her,  which  she  was  care 
ful  to  screen  from  her  manner  and  voice.  "You 
will  be  very  happy,  certainly.  A  young  wife 
would  suit  you  perfectly.  You  have  kept  splen 
didly  young,  Paret." 

"She  is  really  a  superb  creature,  Honora,"  he 
proceeded  gratefully.  "I  must  bring  her  to  you. 
But  I  am  going  to  miss  this."  He  indicated  the 

[59] 


THE    DARK   FLEECE 

grave  chamber  in  which  they  sat,  the  white  marble 
mantel  and  high  mirror,  the  heavy  mahogany  set 
tled  back  in  half  shadow,  the  dark  velvet  draperies 
of  the  large  windows  sweeping  from  alabaster  cor 
nices. 

" Sometimes  I  feel  like  burning  it  to  the  ground," 
she  asserted,  rising.  "I  would  if  I  could  burn 
all  that  it  signifies,  yes,  and  a  great  deal  of  myself, 
too."  She  raised  her  arms  in  a  vivid,  passionate 
gesture.  "Leave  it  all  behind  and  sail  up  to  Java 
Head  and  through  the  Sunda  Strait,  into  life." 

After  the  difficulty  of  his  announcement  Paret 
Fifield  talked  with  animation  about  his  plans  and 
appoaching  marriage.  Honora  wondered  at  the 
swiftness  with  which  she — for  so  long  a  funda 
mental  part  of  his  thought — had  dropped  from  his 
mind.  It  had  the  aspect  of  a  physical  act  of  se 
clusion,  as  if  a  door  had  been  closed  upon  her, 
the  last,  perhaps,  leading  out  of  her  isolation.  She 
hadn't  been  at  all  sure  that  she  would  not  marry 
Paret:  today  she  had  almost  decided  in  favor  of 
such  a  consummation  of  her  existence. 

A  girl  not  quite  nineteen!  She  had  been  only 
twenty  when  Paret  Fifield  had  first  danced  with 
her.  He  had  been  interested  immediately.  It 
was  difficult  for  her  to  realize  that  she  was  now 
thirty-five ;  soon  forty  would  be  upon  her,  and  then 
a  grey  reach.  She  didn't  feel  any  older  than  she 
had,  well — on  the  day  that  Jason  Burrage  departed 

[60] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

for  California.  There  wasn't  a  line  on  her  face; 
no  trace,  yet,  of  time  on  her  spirit  or  body;  but  the 
dust  must  inevitably  settle  over  her  as  it  did  on  a 
vase  standing  unmoved  on  a  shelf.  A  vase  was 
a  tranquil  object,  well  suited  to  glimmer  from  a 
corner  through  a  decade;  but  she  was  different. 
The  heritage  of  her  father's  voyaging  stirred  in 
her  together  with  the  negation  that  held  her  sta 
tionary.  A  third  state,  a  hot  rebellion,  poured 
through  her,  while  she  listened  to  Paret's  facile 
periods.  Really,  he  was  rather  ridiculous  about 
the  girl.  She  was  conscious  of  the  dull  pounding 
of  her  heart. 


The  morning  following  was  remarkably  warm 
and  still;  and,  after  Paret  Fifield  had  gone,  Hon- 
ora  made  her  way  slowly  down  to  the  bay.  The 
sunlight  lay  like  thick  yellow  dust  on  the  ware 
houses  and  docks,  and  the  water  filled  the  sweep 
of  Cottar's  Neck  with  a  solid  and  smoothly  blue 
expanse.  A  fishing  boat,  newly  arrived,  was  being 
disgorged  of  partly  cured  haddock.  The  cargo 
was  loaded  into  a  wheelbarrow,  transferred  to  the 
wharf,  and  there  turned  into  a  basket  on  a  weigh 
ing  scale,  checked  by  a  silent  man  in  series  of 
marks  on  a  small  book,  and  carried  away.  Be 
yond  were  heaped  corks  and  spread  nets  and  a 
great  reel  of  fine  cord. 

When  Honora  walked  without  an  objective  pur 
pose  she  always  came  finally  to  the  water.  It 

[61] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

held  no  surprise  for  her;  there  was  practically 
nothing  she  was  directly  interested  in  seeing.  She 
stood — as  at  present — gazing  down  into  the  tide 
clasping  the  piles,  or  away  at  the  horizon,  the  Nar 
rows  opening  upon  the  sea.  She  exchanged  unre 
markable  sentences  with  familiar  figures,  watched 
the  men  swab  decks  or  tail  new  cordage  through 
blocks,  and  looked  up  absently  at  the  spars  of  the 
schooners  lying  at  anchor. 

She  had  put  on  a  summer  dress  again  of  white 
India  barege,  a  little  hat  with  a  lavender  bow, 
and  she  stood  with  her  silk  shawl  on  an  arm.  The 
stillness  of  the  day  was  broken  only  by  the  creak 
of  the  wheelbarrow.  Last  night  she  had  been  re 
bellious,  but  now  a  lassitude  had  settled  over  her: 
all  emotion  seemed  blotted  out  by  the  pouring  yel 
low  light  of  the  sun. 

At  the  side  of  the  wharf  a  small  warehouse  held 
several  men  in  the  office,  the  smoke  of  pipes  lifting 
slowly  from  the  open  door;  and,  at  the  sound  of 
footfalls,  she  turned  and  saw  Jem  Stanes  entering 
the  building.  His  expression  was  surprisingly 
morose.  It  was,  she  thought  again  as  she  had  of 
Jason  Burrage  striding  darkly  along  the  street, 
singularly  inopportune  at  the  arrival  of  so  much 
good  fortune.  A  burr  of  voices,  thickened  by  the 
salt  spray  of  many  sea  winds,  followed.  She 
heard  laughter,  and  then  Jem's  voice,  indistinguish 
able  but  sullenly  angry. 

Honora  progressed   up  into  the  town,   walked 
[62] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

past  the  courthouse  square,  and  met  Jason  at  the 
corner  of  the  street.  "I  am  glad  to  have  a  chance 
to  welcome  you,"  she  said,  extending  her  hand. 
Close  to  him  her  sense  of  familiarity  faded  before 
the  set  face,  the  tightly  drawn  lips  and  hard  gaze. 
She  grew  a  little  embarrassed.  He  had  on  another, 
still  more  surprising  waistcoat,  his  watch  chain 
was  ponderous  with  gold;  but  dust  had  accumula 
ted  unattended  on  his  shoulders,  and  dimmed  the 
luster  of  his  boots. 

"Thank  you,"  he  replied  non-committally,  giving 
her  palm  a  brief  pressure.  He  stood  silently,  with 
out  cordiality,  waiting  for  what  might  follow. 

"You  are  safely  back  with  the  Golden  Fleece," 
she  continued  more  hurriedly,  "after  yoking  the  fiery 
bulls  and  sailing  past  the  islands  of  the  sirens." 

"I  don't  know  about  all  that,"  he  said  stolidly. 

"Jason  and  the  Argonauts,"  she  insisted,  con 
scious  of  her  stupidity.  He  was  far  more  com 
pelling  than  she  had  remembered,  than  he  ap 
peared  from  a  distance:  the  marked  discontent  of 
his  earlier  years  had  given  place  to  a  certain  power, 
repose:  the  romance  which  she  had  decided  was 
his  main  characteristic  was  emphasized.  She  was 
practically  conversing  with  a  disconcerting  stranger. 

"Olive  was,  of  course,  delighted,"  she  went  res 
olutely  on.  "You  must  marry  soon,  and  build  a 


mansion." 


"We  are  not  going  to  marry  at  all,"  he  stated 
baldly. 

[63] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

"Oh !"  she  exclaimed  and  then  crimsoned 

with  annoyance  at  the  involuntary  syllable.  That 
idiot,  Olive  Stanes,  she  added  to  herself  instantly. 
Honora  could  think  of  nothing  appropriate  to  say. 
"That's  a  great  pity,"  she  temporized.  Why 
didn't  the  boor  help  her?  Hadn't  he  the  slightest 
conception  of  the  obligations  of  polite  existence? 
He  stood  motionless,  the  fingers  of  one  hand  clasp 
ing  a  jade  charm.  However,  she,  Honora  Can- 
deray,  had  no  intention  of  being  affronted  by  Ja 
son  Burrage. 

"You  must  find  it  pale  here  after  California,  if 
what  I've  heard  is  true,"  she  remarked  crisply, 
then  nodded  and  left  him.  That  night  at  supper 
she  repeated  the  burden  of  what  he  had  told  her 
to  her  aunt.  The  latter  answered  in  a  measured 
voice  without  any  trace  of  interest: 

"I  thought  something  of  the  kind  had  happened: 
the  upstairs  girl  was  saying  he  was  drunk  last 
night.  A  habit  acquired  West,  I  don't  doubt.  It 
is  remarkable,  Honora,  how  you  remember  one 
from  another  in  Cottarsport.  They  all  appear  in 
differently  alike  to  me.  And  I  am  tremendously 
upset  about  Paret." 

"Well,  I'm  not,"  Honora  returned.  She  spoke 
inattentively,  and  she  was  surprised  at  the  truth 
she  had  exposed.  Paret  Fifield  had  never  become 
a  necessary  part  of  her  existence.  Except  for  the 
light  he  had  shed  upon  herself — the  sudden 
glimpse  of  multiplying  years  and  the  emptiness  of 

[64] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

her  days — his  marriage  was  unimportant.  She 
would  miss  him  exactly  as  she  might  a  piece  of 
furniture  that  had  been  removed  after  forming  a 
familiar  spot.  She  was  more  engrossed  in  what 
her  aunt  had  told  her  about  Jason. 

He  had  been  back  only  two  or  three  days,  and 
already  lost  his  promised  wife  and  got  drunk.  The 
implications  of  drinking  were  different  in  Cottars- 
port  from  what  they  would  be  in  San  Francisco, 
or  even  Boston;  in  such  a  small  place  as  this  every 
act  offered  the  substance  for  talk,  opinion,  as  long- 
lived  as  the  elms  on  the  hills.  It  was  foolish  of 
him  not  to  go  away  for  such  excesses.  Honora 
wanted  to  tell  him  so.  She  had  inherited  her 
father's  attitude  toward  the  town,  she  thought,  a 
personal  care  of  Cottarsport  as  a  whole,  necessarily 
expressed  in  an  attention  toward  individual  acts 
and  people.  She  wished  Jason  wouldn't  make  a 
fool  of  himself.  Then  she  recalled  how  ineffectual 
the  same  desire,  actually  voiced,  had  been  in  con 
nection  with  Olive  Stanes.  She  recalled  Olive's 
horrified  face  as  she,  Honora,  had  said,  "Grace 
be  damned!"  It  was  all  quite  hopeless.  " I  think 
I'll  move  to  the  city,"  she  informed  her  aunt. 

The  latter  sighed,  from,  Honora  knew,  a  sense 
of  superior  knowledge  and  resignation. 

After  supper  she  deserted  the  more  familiar 
drawing  room  for  the  chamber  across  the  wide 
hall.  A  fire  of  coals  was  burning  in  an  open  grate, 
but  there  was  no  other  light.  Honora  sat  at  a 

[65] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

piano  with  a  ponderous  ebony  case,  and  picked  out 
Violetta's  first  aria  from  Traviata.  The  round 
sweet  notes  seemed  to  float  away  palpable  and  in 
tact  into  the  gloom.  It  was  an  unusual  mood, 
and  when  it  had  gone  she  looked  back  at  it  in  won 
derment  and  distrust.  Her  customary  inner  re 
bellion  re-established  itself  perhaps  more  vigor 
ously  than  before:  she  was  charged  with  energy, 
with  vital  promptings,  but  found  no  opportunity, 
promise,  of  expression  or  accomplishment. 

The  warm  sun  lingered  for  a  day  or  so  more, 
and  then  was  obliterated  by  an  imponderable  bank 
of  fog  that  rolled  in  through  the  Narrows,  over 
Cottar's  Neck,  and  changed  even  the  small  con 
fines  of  the  town  into  a  vast  labyrinth.  That,  in 
turn,  was  dissipated  by  a  swinging  eastern  storm, 
tipped  with  hail,  which  left  stripped  trees  on  an 
ashen  blue  sky  and  dark,  frigid  water  slapping 
uneasily  at  the  harbor  edge. 

Honora  Canderay's  states  of  mind  were  as  vari 
ous  and  similar. 

Her  outer  aspect,  however,  unlike  the  weather, 
showed  no  evidence  of  change:  as  usual  she  drove 
in  the  carriage  on  afternoons  when  it  was  not  too 
cold;  she  appeared,  autocratic  and  lavish,  in  the 
shops  of  Citron  Street;  she  made  her  usual  aimless 
excursions  to  the  harbor.  Jem  Stanes,  she  saw, 
was  still  a  deck  hand  on  the  schooner  Gloriana. 
Looking  back  to  the  morning  when  he  had  scowl- 

[66] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

ingly  entered  the  office  on  the  wharf,  she  was  able 
to  reconstruct  the  cause  of  his  ill  humor — a  brother- 
in-law  to  Jason  Burrage  was  a  person  of  far 
different  employment  from  an  ordinary  Stanes. 
She  passed  Olive  on  the  street,  but  the  latter,  except 
for  a  perfunctory  greeting,  hurried  immediately  by. 

The  stories  of  Jason's  reckless  conduct  multi 
plied — he  had  consumed  a  staggering  amount  of 
Medford  rum  and,  in  the  publicity  of  noon  and 
Marlboro  Street,  sat  upon  the  now  notable  silk  hat. 
He  had  paid  for  some  cheroots  with  a  pinch  of 
gold  dust  as  they  were  said  to  do  in  the  far  West. 
He  carried  a  loaded  derringer,  and  shot  "for  fun" 
the  jar  of  colored  water  in  the  apothecary's  window, 
and  had  threatened,  with  'a  grim  face,  to  do  the 
same  for  whoever  might  interfere  with  his  pleasures. 
He  was,  she  learned,  rapidly  becoming  a  local 
scandal  and  menace. 

If  it  had  been  any  one  but  Jason  Burrage,  native 
born  and  folded  in  the  glamour  of  his  extraordinary 
fortune,  he  would  have  been  immediately  and 
roughly  suppressed:  Honora  well  knew  the  rugged 
and  severe  temper  of  the  town.  As  it  was  he  went 
about — attended  by  its  least  desirable  element,  a 
chorus  to  magnify  his  liberality  and  daring — in  an 
atmosphere  of  wonderment  and  excited  curiosity. 

This,  she  thought,  was  highly  regrettable.  Yet, 
in  his  present  frame  of  mind,  what  else  was  there 
for  him  to  do?  He  couldn't  be  expected  to  take 
seriously,  be  lost  in,  the  petty  affairs  of  Cottars- 

[67] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

port;  beyond  a  limited  amount  the  gold  for  which 
he  had  endured  so  much — she  had  heard  something 
of  his  misfortunes  and  struggle — was  useless  here; 
and,  without  balance,  he  must  inevitably  drift  into 
still  greater  debauch  in  the  large  cities. 

He  was  now  a  frequently  recurring  figure  in  her 
thought.  In  the  correct  presence  of  her  aunt,  Mrs. 
Cozzens,  in  delicate  clothes  and  exact  surroundings, 
the  light  of  an  astral  lamp  on  her  sharply  cut, 
slightly  contemptuous  face,  she  would  consider  the 
problem  of  Jason  Burrage.  In  a  way,  which  she 
had  more  than  once  explained  and  justified  to  her 
self,  she  felt  responsible  for  him.  If  there  had 
been  anything  to  suggest,  she  would  have  gone  to 
him  directly,  but  she  had  no  intention  of  offering 
a  barren  condemnation.  Her  peculiar  position  in 
Cottarsport,  while  it  indicated  certain  obligations, 
required  the  maintenance  of  an  impersonal  plane. 
Why,  he  might  say  anything  to  her;  he  was  quite 
capable  of  telling  her — and  correctly — to  go  to  the 
devil! 

A  new  analogy  was  created  between  Jason  Bur- 
rage  and  herself:  his  advantage  over  her  had  broken 
down,  they  both  appeared  fast  in  untoward  cir 
cumstance  beyond  their  power  to  alleviate  or  shape. 
He  had  come  back  to  Cottarsport  in  the  precise 
manner  in  which  she  had  returned  from  shorter  but 
equally  futile  excursions.  Jason  had  his  money, 
which  at  once  established  necessities  and  made  sat 
isfaction  impossible;  and  she  had  promptings,  de- 

[68] 


THE   DARK    FLEECE 

sires,  that  by  reason  of  their  mere  being,  allowed 
her  contentment  neither  in  the  spheres  of  a  social 
importance  nor  here  in  the  quiet  place  where  so 
much  of  her  was  rooted.  As  Honora  Canderay 
gazed  at  her  Aunt  Herriot's  hard,  fine  profile,  the 
thought  of  her  own,  Honora  Canderay's,  resem 
blance  to  the  returned  miner  carousing  with  the 
dregs  of  the  town  brought  a  shade  of  ironic  amuse 
ment  to  her  countenance. 

Honora  left  the  house,  walking,  in  the  decline  of 
a  November  afternoon.  She  had  been  busy  in  a 
small  way,  supervising  the  filling  of  camphor 
chests  for  the  winter,  and,  intensely  disliking  any  of 
the  duties  of  domesticity,  she  was  glad  to  escape 
into  the  still,  cold  open.  Dusk  was  not  yet  per 
ceptible,  but  the  narrow,  erratic  ways  of  Cottars- 
port  were  filling  with  clear  grey  shadow.  When, 
inevitably,  she  found  herself  at  the  harbor's  edge, 
she  progressed  over  a  narrow  wharf  to  its  end.  It 
had  been  wet,  and  there  were  patches  of  black,  icy 
film;  the  water  near  by  was  grey-black,  but  about 
the  bare  thrust  of  Cottar's  Neck  it  was  green;  the 
warehouses  behind  her  were  blank  and  deserted. 

She  had  on  a  cloak  lined  with  ermine,  and  she 
drew  it  closer  about  her  throat  at  the  frigid  air 
lifting  from  the  bay.  Suddenly  a  flare  of  color 
filled  the  somber  space,  a  coppery  glow  that  glinted 
like  metal  shavings  on  the  water  and  turned  Cot 
tar's  Neck  red.  Against  the  sunset  the  town  was 
formless,  murky;  but  the  sky  and  harbor  resembled 

[69] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

the  interior  of  a  burnished  kettle.  The  effect  was 
extraordinarily  unreal,  melodramtic,  and  she  was 
watching  the  color  fade,  when  a  figure  wavered  out 
of  the  shadows  and  moved  insecurely  toward  her. 
At  first  she  thought  the  stumbling  progressions  were 
caused  by  the  ice:  then  she  saw  that  it  was  Jason 
Burrage,  drunk. 

He  wore  the  familiar  suit  of  broadcloth,  with  no 
outer  covering,  and  a  rough  hat  pulled  down  upon 
his  fixed  gaze.  She  stood  motionless  while  he  ap 
proached,  and  then  calmly  met  his  heavy  interroga 
tion. 

"Honora,"  he  articulated,  "Honora  Canderay, 
one — one  of  the  great  Canderays  of  Cottarsport. 
Well,  why  don't  you  say  something?  Too  set  up 
for  a  civil,  for  a " 

"Don't  be  ridiculous,  Jason,"  she  replied  crisply; 
"and  do  go  home — you'll  freeze  out  here  as  you 


are." 


"One  of  the  great  Canderays,"  he  reiterated, 
contemptuously.  He  came  very  close  to  her. 
"You're  not  much.  Here  they  think  you.  .  .  . 
But  I've  been  to  California,  and  at  the  Jenny  Lind 
...  in  silk  like  a  blue  bird,  and  sing .  No 
body  ever  heard  of  the  Canderays  in  'Frisco,  but 
they  know  Jason  Burrage,  Burrage  who  had  all  the 
bad  luck  there  was,  and  then  struck  it  rich." 

He  swayed  perilously,  and  she  put  out  a  palm 
and  steadied  him.  "Go  back.  You  are  not  fit 
to  be  around." 

[70] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

Jason   struck   her   hand    down   roughly.     "I'm 
fitter  than  you.     What   are   you,  anyway?"     He 
caught  her  shoulder  in  vise-like  fingers.     "Nothing 
but  a  woman,  that's  all — just  a  woman." 
"You  are  hurting  me,"  she  said  fearlessly. 
His  grip  tightened,  and  he  studied  her,  his  eyes 
inhuman  in  a  stony,  white  face.     "Nothing  more 
than  that." 

"You  are  very  surprising,"  she  responded.  "Do 
you  know,  I  had  never  thought  of  it.  And  it's 
true;  that  is  precisely  what  and  all  I  am." 

His  expression  became  troubled;  he  released  her, 
stepped  back,  slipped,  and  almost  fell  into  the 
water.  Honora  caught  his  arm  and  dragged  him 
to  the  middle  of  the  wharf.  "A  dam'  Canderay," 
he  muttered.  "And  I'm  better,  Jason  Burrage. 
Ask  them  at  the  El  Dorado,  or  Indian  Bar;  but 
that's  gone — the  early  days.  All  scientific  now. 
We  got  the  dead  wood  on  gold  .  .  .  cyanide." 

"Come  home,"  she  repeated  brusquely,  turning 
him,  with  a  slight  push,  toward  the  town  settled  in 
darkness.  It  sent  him  falling  forward  in  the  direc 
tion  she  wished.  Honora  supported  him,  led  him 
on.  At  intervals  he  hung  back,  stopped.  His 
speech  became  confused;  then,  it  appeared,  his 
reason  commenced  slowly  to  return.  The  streets 
were  empty;  a  lamp  shone  dimly  on  its  post  at 
a  corner;  she  guided  Jason  round  a  sunken  space. 
Honora  had  no  sense  of  repulsion;  she  was 
conscious  of  a  faint  pity,  but  her  energy  came  dimly 

[71] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

from  that  feeling  of  obligation,  inherited,  she  told 
herself  once  more,  from  her  father — their  essential 
attitude  to  Cottarsport.  At  the  same  time  she 
found  herself  studying  his  face  with  a  personal 
curiosity.  She  was  glad  that  it  was  not  weak,  that 
rum  had  been  ineffectual  to  loosen  its  hardness. 
He  now  seemed  capable  of  walking  alone,  and  she 
stood  aside. 

Jason  was  at  a  loss  for  words;  his  lips  moved, 
but  inaudibly.  "Keep  away  from  the  water,"  she 
commanded,  "or  from  Medford  rum.  And,  some 
evening  soon,  come  to  see  me."  She  said  this  with 
out  premeditation,  from  an  instinct  beyond  her 
searching. 

"I  can't  do  that,"  he  replied  in  a  surprisingly 
rational  voice,  "because  I've  lost  my  silk  hat." 

"There  are  hundreds  for  sale  in  Boston,"  she 
announced  impatiently;  "go  and  get  another." 

"That  never  came  to  me,"  he  admitted,  patently 
struck  by  this  course  of  rehabilitation  through  a 
new  high  hat.  "There  was  something  I  had  to 
say  to  you,  but  it  left  my  mind,  about  a — a  gold 
fleece;  it  turned  into  something  else,  on  the  wharf." 

"When  you  see  me  again."  She  moved  farther 
from  him,  suddenly  in  a  great  necessity  to  be  home. 
She  left  him,  talking  at  her,  and  went  swiftly 
through  the  gloom  to  Regent  Street.  Letting  her 
self  into  the  still  hall,  the  amber  serenity  of  lamp 
light  in  suave  spaciousness,  she  swung  shut  the 
heavy  door  with  a  startling  vigor.  Then  she  stood 

[72] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

motionless,  the  cape  slipping  from  her  shoulders 
in  glistening  and  soft  white  folds  about  her  arms, 
to  the  carpet.  Honora  wasn't  faint,  not  for  a  mo 
ment  had  she  been  afraid  of  Jason  Burrage,  this 
was  not  a  rebellion  of  over-strung  nerves;  yet  a 
passing  blindness,  a  spiritual  shudder,  possessed 
her.  She  had  the  sensation  of  having  just  passed 
through  an  overwhelming  adventure:  yet  all  that 
had  happened  was  commonplace,  even  sordid.  She 
had  met  a  drunken  man  whom  she  hardly  knew 
beyond  his  name  and  an  adventitious  fact,  and 
insisted  on  his  going  home.  Asking  him  to  call  on 
her  had  been  little  less  than  perfunctory — an  im 
personal  act  of  duty. 

Yet  her  being  vibrated  as  if  a  loud  and  disturb 
ing  bell  had  been  unexpectedly  sounded  at  her  ear; 
she  was  responding  to  an  imperative  summons.  In 
her  room,  changing  for  supper,  this  feeling  van 
ished,  and  left  her  usual  introspective  humor. 
Jason  had  spoken  a  profound  truth,  which  her 
surprise  had  recognized  at  the  time,  in  reminding 
her  that  she  was  an  ordinary  woman,  like,  for 
instance,  Olive  Stanes.  The  isolation  of  her  dig 
nity  had  hidden  that  from  her  for  a  number  of 
years.  She  had  come  to  think  of  herself  exclu 
sively  as  a  Canderay. 

Later  her  sharp  enjoyment  in  probing  into  all 
pretensions,  into  herself,  got  slightly  the  better  of 
her.  "I  saw  Jason  Burrage  this  evening,"  she  told 
Mrs.  Cozzens. 

[73] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

"If  he  was  sober,"  that  individual  returned,  ''it 
might  be  worth  recalling." 

"But  he  wasn't.  He  nearly  fell  into  the  harbor. 
I  asked  him  to  see  us." 

"With  your  education,  Honora,  there  is  really 
no  excuse  for  confusing  the  singular  and  plural. 
I  haven't  any  doubt  you  asked  him  here,  but  that 
has  nothing  to  do  with  us." 

"You  might  be  amused  by  his  accounts  of 
California.  For,  although  you  never  complain,  I 
can  see  that  you  think  it  dull." 

"I  am  an  old  woman,"  Herriot  Cozzens  stated, 
"my  life  was  quite  normally  full,  and  I  am  con 
tent  here  with  you.  Any  dullness  you  speak  of  I 
regret  for  another  reason." 

"You  are  afraid  I'll  get  preserved  like  a  salted 
haddock.  He  may  not  come." 

Honora  was  in  the  less  formal  of  the  drawing 
rooms  when  Jason  Burrage  was  announced.  He 
came  forward  almost  immediately,  in  the  most 
rigorous  evening  attire,  a  new  silk  hat  on  his  arm. 

"You  had  no  trouble  getting  one,"  she  nodded  in 
its  direction. 

"Four,"  he  replied  tersely. 

Jason  took  a  seat  facing  her  across  an  open  space 
of  darkly  flowered  carpet,  and  Honora  studied  him, 
directly  critical.  Against  a  vague  background  his 
countenance  was  extraordinarily  pronounced,  viv 
idly  pallid.  His  black  hair  swept  in  a  soft  wave 

[74] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

across  a  brow  with  indented  temples,  his  nose  was 
short  with  wide  nostrils,  the  lower  part  of  his  face 
square.  His  hands,  scarred  and  discolored,  rested 
each  on  a  black-clad  knee. 

She  was  in  no  hurry  to  begin  a  conversation 
which  must  either  be  stilted,  uncomfortable,  or 
reach  beyond  known  confines.  For  the  moment 
her  daring  was  passive.  Jason  Burrage  stirred  his 
feet,  and  she  attended  the  movement  with  thought 
ful  care.  He  said  unexpectedly: 

"I  believe  I've  never  been  in  here  before."  He 
turned  and  studied  his  surroundings  as  if  in  an 
effort  of  memory.  "But  I  talked  to  your  father 
once  in  the  hall." 

"Nothing  has  been  changed,"  she  answered 
almost  unintelligibly.  "Very  little  does  in  Cot- 
tarsport." 

"That's   so,"   he  assented.     "I  saw  it  when   I 

came  back.     It  was  just  the  same,  but  I "  he 

stopped  an3  his  expression  became  gloomy. 

"If  you  mean  that  you  were  different,  you  are 
wrong,"  she  declared  concisely.  "Just  that  has 
made  trouble  for  you — you  have  been  unable  to  be 
anything  but  yourself.  I  am  like  that,  too. 
Every  one  is." 

"I  have  been  through  things,"  he  told  her  enig 
matically.  "Why  look — just  the  trip:  to  Chagres 
on  the  Isthmus,  and  then  mules  and  canoes  through 
that  ropey  woods  to  Panama,  with  thousands  of 
prospectors  waiting  for  the  steamer.  Then  back 

[75] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

by  Mazatlan,  Mexico  City,  and  Vera  Cruz.  A 
man  sees  things." 

Her  inborn  uneasiness  at  rooms,  confining  cir 
cumstance,  her  restless  desire  for  unlimited  hori 
zons,  for  the  mere  fact  of  reaching,  moving,  stirred 
into  being  at  the  names  he  repeated.  Tomorrow 
she  would  go  away,  find  something  new — 

"It  must  have  been  horridly  rough  and  dirty." 

"A  good  many  turned  back  or  died,"  he  agreed 
tentatively.  "But  after  you  once  got  there  a  sort 
of  craziness  came  over  you — you  couldn't  wait  to 
buy  a  pan  or  shovel.  The  bay  was  full  of  rotting 
ships  deserted  by  their  crews,  a  thicket  of  masts 
with  even  the  sails  still  hanging  to  them.  The  men 
jumped  overboard  to  get  ashore  and  pick  up  gold." 

She  thought  with  a  pang  of  the  idle  ships  with 
sprung  rigging,  sodden  canvas  lumpily  left  on  the 
decks,  rotting  as  he  had  said,  in  files.  The  image 
afflicted  her  like  a  physical  pain,  and  she  left  it 
hurriedly.  "But  San  Francisco  must  have  been 
full  of  life." 

"You  had  to  shout  to  be  heard  over  the  bands, 
and  everything  blazing.  Pyramids  of  nuggets  on 
the  gambling  tables.  Gold  dust  and  champagne 
and  mud." 

"Whatever  will  you  find  here?"  She  immedi 
ately  regretted  her  query,  which  seemed  to  search 
improperly  into  the  failure  of  his  marriage. 

"I'm  thinking  of  going  back,"  he  admitted. 

Curiously  Honora  was  sorry  to  hear  this;  un- 
[76] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

reasonably  it  gave  to  Cottarsport  a  new  aspect  of 
barrenness,  the  vista  of  her  own  life  reached  in 
terminable  and  monotonous  into  the  future.  And 
she  was  certain  that,  without  the  necessity  and  in 
centive  of  labor,  it  would  be  destructive  for  Jason 
to  return  to  San  Francisco. 

"What  would  you  do?" 

"Gamble,"  he  replied  cynically. 

"Admirable  prospect,"  she  said  lightly.  Her 
manner  unmistakably  conveyed  the  information 
that  his  call  had  drawn  to  an  end.  He  clearly 
resisted  this  for  a  minute  or  two,  and  then  stirred. 

"You  must  come  again." 

"Why?"  he  demanded  abruptly,  grasping  his 
hat,  which  had  reposed  on  the  carpet  at  his  side. 

"News  from  California,  from  the  world  outside, 
is  rare  in  Cottarsport.  You  must  see  that  you  are 
an  interesting  figure  to  us." 

"Why?"  he  persisted,  frowning. 

She  rose,  her  face  as  hard  as  his  own,  but  with 
a  faint  smile  in  place  of  his  lowering  expression. 
"No,  you  haven't  changed;  not  even  to  the  extent 
of  a  superficial  knowledge  of  drawing  rooms." 

"I  ought  to  have  seen  better  than  come." 

"The  ignorance  was  all  my  own." 

"But  once "  he  paused. 

"Should  be  enough."  Her  smile  widened.  Yet 
she  was  furious  with  herself  for  having  quarreled 
with  him;  the  descent  from  the  altitude  of  the 
Canderays  had  been  enormous.  What  extraor- 

[77] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

dinary  influence  had  colored  her  acts  in  the  past 
few  days? 

Mrs.  Cozzens,  at  breakfast,  inquired  placidly 
how  the  evening  before  had  progressed,  and  Honora 
made  a  gesture  expressive  of  its  difficulties.  "You 
will  create  such  responsibilities  for  yourself,"  the 
elder  stated. 

This  one,  it  suddenly  appeared  to  Honora,  had 
been  thrust  upon  her.  She  made  repeated  and 
angry  efforts  to  put  Jason  Burrage  from  her  mind; 
but  his  appearance  sitting  before  her,  his  words  and 
patent  discontent,  flooded  back  again  and  again. 
She  realized  now  that  he  was  no  impersonal  prob 
lem;  somehow  he  had  got  twisted  into  the  fibres  of 
her  existence;  he  was  more  vividly  in  her  thoughts 
than  Paret  Fifield  had  ever  been.  She  attempted 
to  ridicule  him  mentally,  and  called  up  pictures  of 
his  preposterous  clothes,  the  ill-bred  waistcoats  and 
ponderous  watch  chain.  They  faded  before  the 
memory  of  the  set  jaw,  his  undeniable  romance. 

Wrapped  in  fur,  she  elected  to  drive  after  dinner ; 
the  day  was  cold  but  palely  clear,  and  she  felt 
that  her  cheeks  were  glowing  with  unusual  color. 
Above  the  town,  on  the  hills  now  sere  with  frost 
and  rock,  the  horses,  under  the  aged  guidance  of 
Coggs,  continually  dropped  from  a  jog  trot  to  an 
ambling  walk.  Honora  paid  no  attention  to  the 
gait,  she  was  impervious  to  the  wide,  glittering 
reach  of  water;  and  she  was  startled  to  find  herself 
abreast  a  man  gazing  at  her. 

[78] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

"I  made  a  jackass  out  of  myself  last  night,"  he 
observed  gloomily. 

She  automatically  stopped  the  carriage  and  held 
back  the  buffalo  robe.  Jason  hesitated,  but  was 
forced  to  take  a  seat  at  her  side.  Honora  said 
nothing,  and  the  horses  again  went  forward. 

"I'd  been  drinking  a  lot  and  was  all  on  edge," 
he  volunteered  further.  "I  feel  different  today. 
I  can  remember  your  mother  driving  like  this.  I 
was  a  boy  then,  and  used  to  think  she  was  made 
of  ice;  wondered  why  she  didn't  run  away  in  the 


sun." 


"Mother  was  very  kind,  really,"  Honora  said 
absently.  She  was  relaxed  against  the  cushions, 
the  country  dipped  and  spread  before  her  in  a  rest 
ful  brown  garb;  she  watched  Coggs'  glazed  hat 
sway  against  the  sky.  The  old  sense  of  familiarity 
with  Jason  Burrage  came  back:  why  not,  since  she 
had  known  him  all  their  lives?  And  now,  after 
his  years  away,  she  was  the  only  one  in  Cottarsport 
who  at  all  comprehended  his  difficulties.  He  was 
not  commonplace,  a  strong  man  was  never  that; 
and,  in  a  way,  he  had  the  quality  which  more  than 
any  other  had  made  her  father  so  notable.  And 
he  was  not  unpleasant  so  close  beside  her.  That 
was  of  overwhelming  importance  in  the  formation 
of  her  intimate  opinion  of  him.  He  had  been  re 
fined  by  the  bitterness  of  his  early  failure  in  Cali 
fornia;  he  bore  himself  with  a  certain  dignity. 

"What'll  I  do?"  he  demanded  abruptly. 
[79] 


THE    DARK   FLEECE 

For  the  life  or  her  she  couldn't  tell  him.  Except 
for  platitudes  she  could  offer  no  solution  against 
the  future.  Actual  living,  directly  viewed,  was  like 
that — hopeless  of  exterior  solution.  "I  don't 
know,"  she  admitted,  "I  wish  I  did;  I  wish  I  could 
help  you." 

"This  money,  what's  it  good  for?  I  can't  get 
my  family  to  burn  two  small  stoves  at  once;  they'd 
die  in  the  kitchen  if  they  had  a  hundred  parlors; 
I've  bought  more  clothes  than  I'll  ever  wear,  four 
high  hats  and  so  on.  Not  going  to  get  married ;  no 
use  for  a  big  house,  for  anything  more  than  the 
room  I  have.  I  get  plenty  to  eat " 

"You  might  do  some  good  with  it,"  she  suggested. 
The  base  of  what  she  was  saying,  Honora  realized, 
was  that  he  would  be  as  well  off  with  his  fortune 
given  away.  Yet  it  was  unjust,  absurd,  for  him 
not  to  get  some  use,  pleasure,  from  what  he  had 
worked  so  extravagantly  to  obtain. 

"Somehow  that  wouldn't  settle  anything,  for 
me,"  he  replied. 

Coggs  had  turned  at  the  usual  limit  of  her  after 
noon  driving,  and  they  were  slowly  moving  back 
to  the  town.  Cottar's  Neck  was  fading  into  the 
early  gloom,  and  a  group  of  men  stared  at  Jason 
seated  in  the  Canderays'  carriage  as  if  their  eyes 
were  being  played  with  in  the  uncertain  light. 

"Have  you  thought  any  more  about  going 
West?"  she  inquired. 

They  had  stopped  for  his  descent  at  Marlboro 
[80] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

Street,  and  he  stood  with  a  hand  on  the  wheel. 
"I  had  intended  to  go  this  morning." 

He  held  her  gaze  steadily,  and  she  felt  a  swift 
coldness  touch  her  into  a  shiver. 

"Tomorrow?"  This  came  in  a  spirit  of  perversity 
against  her  every  other  instinct. 

"Shall  I?" 

"Would  you  be  happier  in  San  Francisco?" 

Jason  Burrage  made  a  hopeless  gesture. 

"...  for  supper,"  Honora  found  herself  saying 
in  a  rush;  "at  six  o'clock.  If  you  aren't  bound  for 
California." 

She  tried  to  recall  afterward  if  she  had  indicated 
a  particular  evening  for  the  invitation.  There  was 
a  vague  memory  of  mentioning  Thursday.  This 
was  Tuesday  .  .  .  Herriot  Cozzens  would  be  in 
Boston. 


A  servant  told  her  that  Mr.  Burrage  had  arrived 
when  she  was  but  half  ready.  She  was,  in  reality, 
undecided  in  her  choice  of  a  dress  for  the  evening; 
but  finally  she  wore  soft  white  silk,  with  deep, 
knotted  fringe  on  the  skirt,  a  low  cut  neck,  and  a 
narrow  mantle  of  black  velvet.  Her  hair,  severely 
plain  in  its  net,  was  drawn  back  from  a  bang  cut 
across  her  brow.  As  she  entered  the  room  where  he 
was  standing  a  palpable  admiration  marked  his 
countenance. 

He  said  nothing,  however,  beyond  a  conventional 
phrase.  Such  natural  reticence  had  a  large  part  in 

[81] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

her  acceptance  of  him;  he  did  nothing  that  actively 
disturbed  her  hypercritical  being.  He  was  almost 
distinguished  in  appearance.  She  had  a  feeling 
that  if  it  had  been  different.  .  .  .  Honora  distinctly 
wished  for  a  flamboyant  touch  about  him;  it 
presented  a  symbol  of  her  command  of  any  situa 
tion  between  them,  a  reminder  of  her  superiority. 

The  supper  went  forward  smoothly;  there  were 
the  welcome  inevitable  reminiscences  of  the  rough 
fare  of  California,  laughter  at  the  prohibitive  cost 
of  beans;  and  when,  at  her  direction,  he  lighted  a 
cheroot,  and  they  lingered  on  at  the  table,  Honora's 
aloofness  was  becoming  a  thing  of  the  past.  The 
smoke  gave  her  an  unexpected  thrill,  an  extraor 
dinary  sense  of  masculine  proximity.  There  had 
been  no  such  blue  clouds  in  the  house  since  her 
father's  death  seven  years  ago.  Settled  back  con 
tentedly,  Jason  Burrage  seemed — why,  actually,  he 
had  an  air  of  occupying  a  familiar  place. 

It  was  bitterly  cold  without,  the  room  into  which 
they  trailed  insufficiently  warm,  and  they  were 
drawn  close  together  at  an  open  Franklin  stove. 
The  lamps  on  the  mantel  were  distant,  and  they 
had  not  yet  been  fully  turned  up:  his  face  was 
tinged  by  the  glow  of  the  fire.  An  intense  face. 
"What  are  you  thinking  about — me?"  she  added 
coolly.  "Nothing,"  he  replied;  "I'm  too  comfor 
table  to  think."  There  was  a  note  of  surprise  in 
his  voice;  he  looked  about  as  if  to  find  reassurance 
of  his  present  position.  "But  if  I  did  it  would  be 

[82] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

this — that  you  are  entirely  different  from  any 
woman  I've  ever  known  before.  They  have  always 
been  one  of  two  kinds.  One  or  the  other,"  he 
repeated  somberly.  "Now  you  are  both  together. 
I  don't  know  as  I  ought  to  say  that,  if  it's  nice.  I 
wouldn't  like  to  try  and  explain." 

"But  you  must." 

"It's  your  clothes  and  your  manner  put  against 
what  you  are.  Oh  hell,  what  I  mean  is  you're 
elegant  to  look  at  and  good,  too." 

An  expression  of  the  deepest  concern  followed 
his  exclamation.  He  commenced  an  apology. 
Hardly  launched,  it  died  on  his  lips. 

Honora  was  at  once  conscious  of  the  need  for 
his  contrition  and  of  the  fact  that  she  had  never 
heard  a  more  entertaining  statement.  It  was  evi 
dent  that  he  viewed  her  as  a  desirable  compound 
of  the  women  of  the  El  Dorado  and  Olive  Stanes : 
an  adroit  and  sincere  compliment.  She  wanted  to 
follow  it  on  and  on,  unfold  its  every  exposition; 
but,  of  course,  that  was  impossible.  All  this  she 
concealed  behind  an  indifferent  countenance,  her 
slim  white  fingers  half  embedded  in  the  black 
mantle. 

Jason  Burrage  lighted  another  cheroot  and  put 
his  feet  up  on  the  polished  brass  railing  of  the  iron 
hearth.  This  amused  her  beyond  words.  She 
couldn't  remember  when  she  had  had  another  such 
vitalized  evening.  She  realized  that,  through  the 
last  years,  she  had  been  appallingly  lonely;  but 

[83] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

with  Jason  smoking  beside  her  in  a  tilted  chair  the 
solitude  was  banished.  She  got  a  coal  for  him  in 
the  small  burnished  tongs,  and  he  responded  with 
a  prodigious  puff  that  set  her  to  coughing, 

When  he  had  gone  the  house  was  hatefully 
vacant;  as  she  went  up  to  her  chamber  the  empty 
spaciousness,  the  semi-dark  well  of  the  stair,  the 
high  hall  with  its  low-turned  lamp,  the  blackness 
of  the  third  story  pouring  down  over  her,  oppressed 
her  almost  beyond  endurance.  Her  Aunt  Herriot, 
already  old,  must  be  dead  before  very  long,  there 
was  none  other  of  her  connections  who  could  live 
with  her,  and  she  would  have  to  depend  on  per 
functory,  hired  companionship. 

Honora  saw  that  she  should  never  escape  from 
the  influence  which  held  her  in  Cottarsport. 

In  her  room,  the  door  bolted,  it  was  no  better. 
The  interior  was  large,  uncompromisingly  square; 
and,  though  every  possible  light  was  burning,  still 
it  seemed  somber,  menacing. 

The  following  day  was  a  lowering  void  with 
gusts  of  rain  driving  against  the  windows.  Mrs. 
Cozzens  would  be  away  until  tomorrow,  and  Hon 
ora  met  the  afternoon  alone.  At  times  she  em 
broidered,  short-lived  efforts  broken  by  despondent 
and  aimless  excursions  through  the  echoing  halls. 

She  attempted  to  read,  to  compose  herself  with 
an  elaborate  gilt  and  embellished  volume  called 
"The  Garland."  But,  at  a  Lamentation  on  the 
Death  of  Her  Canary,  by  a  Person  of  Quality,  she 

[84] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

deliberately  dropped  the  book  into  the  burning 
coals  of  the  Franklin  stove.  The  satisfaction  of 
seeing  the  pages  crisp  and  burst  into  flame  soon 
evaporated.  The  day  was  a  calamity,  the  ap 
proaching  murky  evening  a  horror. 

At  supper  she  wondered  what  Jason  Burrage  was 
doing.  A  trace  of  the  odor  of  his  cheroot  lingered 
in  the  dining  room.  He  was  an  astonishingly 
solid,  the  only,  actuality  in  a  nebulous  world  of 
lofty,  flickering  ceilings  and  the  lash  of  rain.  He 
might  as  well  smoke  in  her  drawing  room  as  in 
the  Burrage  kitchen.  Paret  Fifield  would  have 
drifted  naturally  to  the  Canderay  house,  but  not 
Jason,  not  a  native  of  Cottarsport.  .  .  .  With  an 
air  of  determination  she  sharply  pulled  the  plush, 
tasseled  bell  rope  in  the  corner. 

She  heard  the  servant  open  the  front  door;  there 
was  a  pause — Jason  was  taking  off  his  greatcoat — 
after  which  he  entered,  calm  and  without  query. 

"I  was  tired  of  sitting  by  myself,"  she  said  with 
an  air  of  entire  frankness.  In  a  minute  or  so  more 
it  was  all  as  it  had  been  the  evening  before — she 
held  a  coal  for  his  cheroot  as  he  tilted  back  beside 
her  with  his  feet  on  the  rail.  "You  are  a  very 
comfortable  man,  Jason,"  she  told  him. 

He  made  no  reply,  although  a  quiver  crossed  his 
lips.  Then,  after  a  little,  "It's  astonishing  how 
soon  you  get  used  to  things.  Seems  as  if  I  had 
been  here  for  years,  and  this  is  only  the  third  time." 

[85] 


THE    DARK   FLEECE 

"Have  you  thought  any  more  of  California?" 

He  faced  her  with  an  expression  of  surprise. 
"It  had  gone  clean  out  of  my  mind.  I  suppose 
I  will  shift  back,  though — nothing  here  for  me.  I 
can't  come  to  see  you  every  evening." 

She  preserved  a  silence  in  which  they  both  fell 
to  staring  into  a  dancing,  bluish  flame.  The  gusts 
of  rain  were  audible  like  the  tearing  of  heavy  linen. 
An  extraordinary  idea  had  taken  possession  of 
Honora — if  the  day  had  been  fine,  if  she  had  been 
out  in  a  sparkling  air  and  sun,  a  very  great  deal 
would  have  happened  differently.  But  just  what 
she  couldn't  then  say:  the  fact  alone  was  all  that 
she  curiously  apprehended. 

"I  suppose  not,"  she  answered,  so  long  after  his 
last  statement  that  he  gazed  questioningly  at  her. 
"I  wonder  if  it  has  occurred  to  you,"  she  continued, 
"how  much  alike  we  are?  I  often  think  about  it." 

"Why,  no,"  he  replied,  "it  hasn't.  Jason  Bur- 
rage  and  Honora  Canderay!  I  wouldn't  have 
guessed  it,  and  I  don't  believe  any  one  else  ever 
has.  I'd  have  a  hard  time  thinking  about  two  more 
different.  It's — it's  ridiculous."  He  became  seri 
ously  animated.  "Here  I  am — well,  you  know  all 
about  me — with  some  money,  perhaps,  and  a  little 
of  the  world  in  my  head;  but  you're  Honora 
Canderay." 

"You  said  once  that  I  was  nothing  but  a  woman," 
she  reminded  him. 

[86] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

"I  remember  that,"  he  admitted  with  evident 
chagrin.  "I  was  drunk." 

"That's  when  the  truth  is  often  hit  on;  I  am 
quite  an  ordinary  sort  of  woman." 

He  laughed  indulgently. 

"You  said  last  evening  I  had  some  of  a  very 
common  quality." 

"Now  you  mustn't  take  that  serious,"  he  pro 
tested;  "it  was  just  in  a  way  of  speech.  I  told  you 
I  couldn't  rightly  explain  myself." 

"Anyhow,"  she  asserted  bluntly,  "I  am  lonely. 
What  will  you  do  about  it?" 

His  amazement  turned  into  a  consternation  which 
even  now  she  found  almost  laughable.  "Me?"  he 
stammered.  "There's  no  way  I  can  help  you. 
You  are  having  a  joke." 

She  realized,  with  a  feeling  that  her  knowledge 
came  too  late,  that  she  was  entirely  serious.  Ja 
son  Burrage  was  the  only  being  alive  who  could 
give  her  any  assistance,  yes,  save  her  from  the 
future.  Her  hands  were  cold,  she  felt  absolutely 
still,  as  if  she  had  suddenly  turned  into  marble,  a 
statue  with  a  heart  slightly  fluttering. 

"You  could  be  here  a  lot,"  she  told  him,  and  then 
paused,  glancing  at  him  swiftly  with  hard,  bright 
eyes.  He  had  removed  his  feet  from  the  stove, 
and  sat  with  his  cheroot  in  a  poised,  awkward  hand. 
She  was  certain  that  he  would  never  speak. 

"We  might  get  married." 
[87] 


THE    DARK   FLEECE 

Honora  was  startled  at  the  ease  with  which  the 
words  were  pronounced,  and  conscious  of  an  ab 
surdly  trivial  curiosity — she  wondered  just  how 
much  he  had  been  shocked  by  her  proposal?  She 
saw  that  he  was  stupefied.  Then : 

"So  we  might,"  he  pronounced  idiotically. 
"There  isn't  any  real  reason  why  we  shouldn't. 

That  is ."  He  stopped.  "Where  does  the 

laugh  start?"  he  demanded. 

Suddenly  Honora  was  overwhelmed,  not  by  what 
she  had  said,  but  by  the  whole  difficulty  and  inner 
confusion  of  her  existence.  She  turned  away  her 
head  with  an  unintelligible  period.  A  silence  fol 
lowed,  intensified  by  the  rain  flinging  against  the 
glass. 

"It's  a  bad  night,  "  he  muttered. 

The  banality  saved  her.  Again  practically  at 
her  ease,  she  regarded  him  with  slightly  smiling 
lips.  "I  believe  I've  asked  you  to  marry  me,"  she 
remarked. 

"Thank  you,"  said  Jason  Burrage.  He  stood 
up.  "If  you  mean  it,  I'd  like  to  very  much." 

"You'd  better  sit  down,"  she  went  on  in  an 
impersonal  voice;  "there  ought  to  be  a  lot  of  things 
to  arrange.  For  instance,  hadn't  we  better  live  on 
here,  for  a  while  anyhow?  It's  a  big  house  to 
waste." 

"Honora,  you'll  just  have  to  stop  a  little,"  he 
asserted;  "I'm  kind  of  lost.  It  was  quick  in  Cali- 

[88] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

fornia,  but  that  was  a  funeral  procession  compared 
with  you." 

Now  that  it  was  done,  she  was  frightened.  But 
there  was  time  to  escape  even  yet.  She  determined 
to  leave  the  room  quickly,  get  away  to  the  safety 
of  her  bolted  door,  her  inviolable  privacy.  She 
didn't  stir.  An  immediate  explanation  that  she 
hadn't  been  serious — how  could  he  have  thought  it 
for  a  moment! — would  save  her.  But  she  was 
silent. 

A  sudden  enthusiasm  lighted  up  his  immobile 
face.  "I'll  get  the  prettiest  diamond  in  Boston," 
he  declared. 

"You  mustn't "  she  commenced,  struggling 

still  to  retreat.     He  misunderstood  her. 

"The  very  best,"  he  insisted. 

When  he  had  gone  she  remained  seated  in  the 
formal  chamber.  At  any  rate  she  had  conquered 
the  emptiness  of  her  life,  of  the  great  square  house 
above  her.  It  was  definitely  arranged,  they  were 
to  marry.  How  amazed  Herriot  Cozzens  would 
be!  It  was  probable  that  she  would  leave  Cot- 
tarsport,  and  her,  Honora,  immediately.  Jason 
hadn't  kissed  her,  he  had  not  even  touched  her 
hand,  in  going.  He  had  been  extremely  subdued, 
except  at  the  thought  of  the  ring  he  would  buy  for 
her. 

There  were  phases  of  the  future  which  she 
resolutely  ignored. 

[89] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

Mrs.  Cozzens  came  back  as  had  been  planned, 
and  Honora  told  her  at  once.  The  older  woman 
expressed  her  feeling  in  contained,  acid  speech.  "I 
am  surprised  he  had  the  assurance  to  ask  you." 

"Jason  didn't,"  Honora  calmly  returned. 

"It's  your  father,"  the  elder  stated;  "he  had 
some  very  vulgar  blood.  I  felt  that  it  was  a 
calamity  when  my  sister  accepted  him.  A  Cot- 
tarsport  person  at  heart,  just  as  you  are,  always 
down  about  the  water  and  those  low  docks." 

"I'm  sure  you're  right,  and  so  it's  much  better 
for  me  to  find  where  I  belong.  I  have  tried  to  get 
away  from  Cottarsport,  and  from  the  sea  and  the 
schooners  sailing  in  and  out  of  the  Narrows,  a 
thousand  times.  But  I  always  come  back,  just  as 
father  did,  back  to  this  little  place  from  the  entire 
world — China  and  Africa  and  New  York.  The 
other  influences  weren't  strong  enough,  Aunt  Her- 
riot;  they  only  made  me  miserable;  and  now  I've 
killed  them.  I'll  say  good-bye  to  you  and  Paret 
and  the  cotillions."  She  kissed  her  hand,  but  not 
gaily,  to  a  whole  existence  irrevocably  lost. 

With  Jason's  ring  blazing  on  her  slim  finger  she 
drove,  the  day  before  the  wedding,  for  the  last  time 
as  Honora  Canderay.  The  leaves  had  been 
stripped  from  the  elms  on  the  hills,  brown  and  bar 
ren  against  the  flashing,  steely  water.  She  saw 
that  Coggs  was  so  impotent  with  age  that  if  the 
horses  had  been  more  vigorous  he  would  be  help 
less.  Coggs  had  driven  for  her  father,  then  her, 

[90] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

for  thirty  years.  It  was  too  cold  for  the  old  man 
to  be  out  today.  His  cheeks  were  dark  crimson, 
and  continually  wet  from  his  failing  eyes. 

Herriot  Cozzens  had  left  her;  Coggs  ...  all 
the  intimate  figures  of  so  many  years  were  vanish 
ing.  Jason  remained.  He  had  almost  entirely 
escaped  annoying  her,  and  she  was  conscious  of 
his  overwhelming  admiration,  the  ineradicable  es 
teem  of  Cottarsport  for  the  Canderays;  but  a  ques 
tion,  a  doubt  more  obscure  than  fear,  was  taking 
possession  of  her.  After  all  she  was  supremely 
ignorant  of  life;  she  had  been  screened  from  it  by 
pride  and  luxurious  circumstance;  but  now  she  had 
surrendered  all  her  advantage.  She  had  given 
herself  to  Jason;  and  he  was  life,  mysterious  and 
rude.  The  thunder  of  large,  threatening  seas, 
reaching  everywhere  beyond  the  placid  gulf  below, 
beat  faintly  on  her  perception. 


[91] 


JASON 


IN"  an  unfamiliar  upper  room  of  the  Canderays' 
house  Jason  stood  prepared  for  the  signal  to 
descend  to  his  wedding.  The  ceremony  was 
to  occur  at  six  o'clock;  it  was  now  only  five  minutes 
before — he  had  absently  looked  at  his  watch  a 
great  many  times  in  a  short  space — and  he  was 
striving  to  think  seriously  of  what  was  to  follow. 
But  in  place  of  this  he  was  passing  again  through 
a  state  of  silent,  incoherent  surprise.  This  was 
the  sort  of  thing  for  which  a  man  might  pinch  him 
self  to  discover  if  he  were  awake  or  dreaming.  In 
five,  no,  four,  minutes  now  Honora  Canderay  was 
to  become  his,  Jason  Burrage's,  wife. 

A  certain  complacency  had  settled  over  him  in 
the  past  few  days,  something  of  his  inborn  feeling 
of  the  Canderays  as  a  house  apart  seemed  to  have 
evaporated;  and,  in  addition,  he  had  risen — Hon 
ora  wouldn't  take  any  just  happen  so.  Jason  was 
never  notable  for  humility.  Yet  who,  even  after 
he  had  returned  from  California  with  his  riches, 
could  have  predicted  this  evening?  His  astonish 
ment  was  as  much  at  himself,  illuminated  by  ex 
traordinary  events,  as  at  any  exterior  circumstance. 
At  times  he  had  the  ability  to  see  himself,  as  if  from 

[95] 


THE    DARK   FLEECE 

the  outside;  and  that  view,  here,  was  amazing. 
Why,  only  a  short  while  ago  he  had  been  drinking 
rum  in  the  shed  in  back  of  "Pack"  Glower's  house, 
perhaps  the  least  desirable  shed  in  Cottarsport. 

Of  one  fact,  however,  he  was  certain — no  more 
promiscuous  draughts  of  Medford.  He  recog 
nized  that  he  had  taken  so  much  not  from  the 
presence  of  desire,  but  from  a  total  absence  of  it 
as  well  as  of  any  other  mental  state.  "Pack"  and 
his  associates,  too,  were  now  a  thing  of  the  past, 
a  bitterly  rough  and  vacant  element.  The  glass 
lamp  on  a  bureau  was  smoking :  he  stepped  forward 
to  lower  the  wick,  when  a  knock  fell  on  the  door. 
A  young  Boston  relative  of  Honora's — a  supercili 
ous  individual  in  checked  trousers  and  lemon- 
colored  gloves — announced  that  they  were  waiting 
for  Jason  below.  With  a  determined  settling  of 
his  shoulders  and  tightly  drawn  lips,  he  marched 
resolutely  forward. 

The  marriage  was  to  be  in  the  chamber  across 
from  the  one  in  which  he  had  generally  sat. 
Smilax  and  white  Killarney  roses  had  been  bowed 
over  the  mantel  at  the  farthest  end,  and  there  Jason 
found  the  clergyman  waiting.  The  room  was  half 
full  of  people  occupying  chairs  brought  from  other 
parts  of  the  house;  and  he  was  conscious  of  a 
sudden  silence,  an  intent,  curious  scrutiny,  as  he 
entered.  An  instinctive  antagonism  to  this  deep 
ened  in  him:  he  felt  that,  with  the  exception  of  his 
father  and  mother,  he  hadn't  a  friend  in  the  room. 

[96] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

Such  other  local  figures  as  were  there  were  facilely 
imitating  the  cold  stare  of  Honora's  connections. 
He  stood  belligerently  facing  Mrs.  Cozzens'  glacial 
calm,  the  inspection  of  a  man  he  had  seen  driving 
with  Honora  in  Cottarsport,  now  accompanied  by  a 
pettish,  handsome  girl,  evidently  his  wife.  His 
father's  weathered  countenance,  sunken  and  dry  on 
its  bones,  was  blank,  except  for  a  faint  doubt,  as  if 
some  mistake  had  been  made  which  would  presently 
be  exposed,  sending  them  about  face.  His  mother, 
however,  was  triumphant  pride  and  justification 
personified.  Then  the  music  commenced — a  harp, 
violin,  and  double  bass. 

The  wedding  ring  firmly  secured,  Jason  stirred 
with  a  feeling  of  increasing  awkwardness.  He 
glared  back,  with  a  protruding  lip,  at  the  fellow 
with  the  young  wife,  at  the  small,  aggressive  group 
from  Boston;  and  then  he  saw  that  Honora  was  in 
the  room.  She  was  coming  slowly  toward  him. 
Her  expression  of  absolute  unconcern  released  him 
from  all  petty  annoyance,  any  thought  of  the 
malicious  onlookers.  As  she  stopped  at  his  side 
she  gave  him  a  slight  nod  and  smile;  and  at  that 
moment  a  tremendous,  sheer  admiration  for  her 
was  born  in  him. 

Honora  had  chosen  to  be  unattended — she  had 
coolly  observed  that  she  was  well  beyond  the  age 
for  such  sentimentality — and  he  realized  that 
though  the  present  would  have  been  a  racking  oc 
casion  for  most  women,  it  was  evident  that 

[97] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

she  was  not  disturbed  in  the  least.  He  had  a 
general  impression  of  sugary  white  satin,  of  her 
composed,  almost  disdainful  face  in  a  cloud  of  veil 
with  little  waxen  orange  flowers,  of  slender  still 
hands,  when  they  turned  from  the  room  to  the 
minister. 

They  had  gone  over  the  marriage  service  to 
gether,  he  had  read  it  again  in  the  kitchen  at  home; 
he  was  fairly  familiar  with  its  periods  and  re 
sponses,  and  got  through  with  only  a  slight  hesita 
tion  and  half  prompting.  But  the  thickness  of  his 
voice,  in  comparison  with  Honora's  open,  decisive 
utterance,  vainly  annoyed  him.  He  wanted  des 
perately  to  clear  his  throat.  Suddenly  it  was  over, 
and  Honora,  in  a  swirl  of  satin,  was  sinking  to  her 
knees.  Beside  her  he  listened  with  a  feeling  of 
comfortable  lull  to  a  lengthy  prayer. 

Rising,  he  perfunctorily  clasped  a  number  of 
indifferent  palms,  replied  inanely  to  gabbled  ex 
pressions  of  good  will  and  hopes  for  the  future  un 
mistakably  pessimistic  in  tone.  Honora  told  him 
in  a  rapid  aside  the  names  of  those  approaching. 
She  smiled  radiantly  at  his  father  and  mother, 
leaned  forward  and  whispered  in  the  latter 's  ear; 
and  they  followed  the  guests  streaming  into  the 
dining  room. 

There  champagne  was  being  opened  by  the  ca 
terer's  assistants  from  Boston.  There  were  steam 
ing  platters  of  terrapin  and  oysters  and  fowl.  The 
table  bore  pyramids  of  nuts  and  preserved  fruit, 

[98] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

hot  Cinderellas  in  cups  with  sugar  and  wine,  black 
case  cake,  Savoy  biscuits,  pumpkin  paste,  and 
frothed  creams  with  preserved  peach  leaves.  A 
laden  plate  was  thrust  into  Jason's  hand,  and  he 
sat  with  it  in  a  clatter  of  voices  and  topics  that 
completely  ignored  him.  He  was  isolated  in  the 
absorption  of  food  and  wine,  in  a  conversational 
exchange  as  strange  to  him  as  if  had  been  spoken 
in  a  foreign  language. 

Honora  was  busily  talking  to  young  Mrs.  Fifield 
— he  remembered  the  name  now.  Apparently  she 
had  forgotten  his  existence.  At  first  this  annoyed 
him;  he  determined  to  force  his  way  into  their  at 
tention,  but  a  wiser  realization  held  him  where  he 
was.  Honora  was  exactly  right:  he  had  nothing 
in  common  with  these  people,  probably  not  one  of 
them  would  come  into  his  life  or  house  again. 
And  his  wife,  in  the  fact  of  her  marriage,  had 
clearly  signified  how  little  important  they  were  to 
her.  His  father  joined  him. 

"You  made  certain  when  the  New  York  packet 
leaves?"  he  queried. 

"Everything's  fixed,"  Jason  reassured  him. 

"Your  mother  wanted  to  see  you.  But  she  got 
set  and  is  kind  of  timid  about  moving."  Jason 
rose  promptly,  and,  with  the  elder,  found  Mrs. 
Hazzard  Burrage.  "I'd  like  to  have  Honora,  too," 
the  latter  told  them,  and  Jason  turned  sharply  to 
find  her.  When  they  stood  facing  the  old  couple 
his  mother  hesitated  doubtfully;  then  she  put  out 

[99] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

her  hand  to  the  woman  in  wedding  array.  But 
Honora  ignored  it;  leaning  forward  she  kissed  the 
round,  bright  cheek. 

"You  have  to  be  patient  with  them  at  times,"  the 
mother  said,  looking  up  anxiously. 

"I'm  afraid  Jason  will  need  that  warning,"  Hon 
ora  replied;  "he  is  a  very  imprudent  man." 

Jason's  mind  returned  to  this  later,  sitting  in  the 
house  that  had  been  the  Canderays',  but  which  now 
was  his  too.  Honora's  remark  to  his  mother  had 
been  clear  in  itself,  but  it  suggested  wide  specula 
tions  beyond  his  grasp.  For  instance — why,  after 
all,  had  Honora  married  him?  He  was  forced  to 
acknowledge  that  it  was  not  the  result  of  any  over 
whelming  feeling  for  him.  The  manner  of  their 
wedding,  the  complete  absence  of  the  emotion  sup 
posed  to  be  the  incentive  of  such  consummations, 
Honora  herself,  all,  denied  any  effort  to  fix  such  a 
personally  satisfactory  cause.  That  she  might 
have  had  no  other  opportunity — Honora  was  not 
so  young  as  she  had  been — he  dismissed  as  ob 
viously  absurd.  Why 

His  gaze  was  fastened  upon  the  carpet,  and  he 
saw  that  time  and  the  passage  of  feet  had  worn 
away  the  design.  He  looked  about  the  room,  and 
was  surprised  to  discover  a  general  dinginess  which 
he  had  never  noticed  before.  He  said  nothing,  but, 
in  his  movements  about  the  house,  examined  the 
furnishings  and  walls,  and  an  astonishing  fact  was 

[100] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

thrust  upon  him — the  celebrated  dwelling  was 
grievously  run  down.  It  was  plain  that  no  money 
had  been  spent  on  it  for  years.  The  carriage,  too, 
and  the  astrakhan  collar  on  Coggs'  coat,  were  worn 
out. 

He  considered  this  at  breakfast — his  wife  be 
hind  a  tall  Sheffield  coffee  urn — and  he  was  aware 
of  the  cold  edge  of  a  distasteful  possibility.  The 
thought  enveloped  him  insidiously,  like  the  fog 
which  often  rolled  through  the  Narrows  and  over 
the  town,  that  the  Canderays  were  secretly  impov 
erished,  and  Honora  had  married  him  only  for 
his  money.  Jason  was  not  resentful  of  this  in  it 
self,  since  he  had  been  searching  for  a  motive  he 
could  accept,  but  it  struck  him  in  a  peculiarly  vul 
nerable  spot — his  admiration  for  his  wife,  for 
Honora.  The  idea,  although  he  assured  himself 
that  the  thing  was  readily  comprehensible,  some 
how  managed  to  diminish  her,  to  tarnish  the  luster 
she  held  for  him.  It  was  far  beneath  the  eleva 
tion  on  which  Cottarsport  had  placed  the  Cander 
ays;  and  he  suffered  a  distinct  sense  of  loss,  a 
feeling  of  the  staleness  and  disappointment  of  liv 
ing. 

The  more  he  considered  this  explanation  the 
more  he  was  convinced  of  its  probability.  A 
great  deal  of  his  genuine  warmth  in  his  marriage 
evaporated.  Still — Honora  had  married  him,  she 
had  given  herself  in  return  for  what  material  ad 
vantage  he  might  bring;  and  he  would  have  to 

[101] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

perform  his  part  thoroughly.  He  ought  to  have 
known  that 

What  he  must  do  now  was  to  save  them  both 
from  any  painful  revelation  by  keeping  for  ever 
hid  that  he  was  aware  of  her  purpose,  he  must 
never  expose  himself  by  a  word  or  act;  and  he 
must  make  her  understand  that  whatever  he  had 
was  absolutely  hers.  It  would  be  necessary  for 
her  to  go  to  the  money  with  entire  freedom  and 
without  any  accounting. 

This,  he  found,  was  not  so  easy  to  establish  as 
he  thought.  Honora  was  his  wife,  but  neverthe 
less  there  was  a  well  marked  reticence  between 
them,  a  formal  nicety  with  which  he  was  heartily 
in  accord.  He  couldn't  just  thrust  his  fortune 
before  her  on  the  table.  He  hesitated  through  the 
day,  on  the  verge  of  various  blunders;  and 
then,  in  the  evening,  said  in  a  studied  casuality  of 
manner : 

"What  do  you  think  about  fixing  some  of  the 
rooms  over  new?  You  might  get  tired  of  seeing 
the  same  things  for  so  long.  I  saw  real  elegant 
furniture  in  Boston." 

She  looked  about  indifferently.  "I  think  I 
wouldn't  like  it  changed,"  she  remarked,  almost  in 
the  manner  of  a  defense.  "I  suppose  it  does  seem 
worn  to  you;  but  I'm  used  to  it;  there  are  so  many 
associations.  I  am  certain  I'd  be  lost  in  new  hang 
ings." 

Jason  was  so  completely  silenced  by  her  reply 
[102] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

that  he  felt  he  must  have  shown  some  confusion, 
for  her  gaze  deliberately  turned  to  him.  "Is  there 
any  ^particular  thing  you  would  like  repaired?" 
she  inquired. 

"No,  of  course  not,"  he  said  hastily.  "I  think 
it's  all  splendid.  I  wouldn't  change  a  curtain, 
only — but.  ..."  He  cursed  himself  for  a  clumsy 
fool  while  Honora  continued  to  study  him.  He 
endeavored  to  shield  himself  behind  the  trivial 
business  of  lighting  a  cheroot;  but  he  felt  Honora's 
query  searching  him  out.  Finally,  to  his  extreme 
dismay,  he  heard  her  say: 

"Jason,  I  believe  you  think  I  married  you  for 
money!" 

Pretense,  he  realized,  would  be  no  good  now. 

"Something  like  that  did  occur  to  me,"  he  ac 
knowledged  desperately. 

"Really,"  she  told  him  sharply.  "I  could  be 
cross  very  easily.  You  are  too  -stupid.  Father 
did  wonderfully  well  on  his  voyages,  and  his  profit 
was  invested  by  Frederic  Cozzens,  one  of  the 
shrewdest  financiers  of  his  day.  I  have  twice, 
probably  three  times,  as  much  as  you." 

She  confronted  him  with  a  faintly  sparkling  re 
sentment.  However,  the  pleasure,  the  reassurance, 
in  what  he  had  just  heard  made  him  indifferent  to 
the  rest.  It  was  impossible  now  to  comprehend 
how  he  had  been  such  a  block!  He  even  smiled 
at  her,  which,  he  was  delighted  to  observe,  obvi 
ously  puzzled  her. 

[103] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

"Perhaps  I  ought  to  tell  you,  Jason,  and  per 
haps  it  is  too  late  already,  that  I  thought  I  mar 
ried  you  because  I  was  lonely,  because  I  feared 
the  future.  Anyhow,  that's  what  I  told  myself 
the  night  I  sent  for  you.  You  might  have  a  right 
to  complain  very  bitterly  about  it." 

"If  I  have,  I  won't,"  he  assured  her  cheerfully. 

"I  thought  that  then;  but  now  I  am  not  at  all 
sure.  It  no  longer  seems  so  simple,  so  easily  ex 
plained.  I  used  to  feel  that  I  understood  myself 
very  thoroughly,  I  could  look  inside  and  see  what 
was  there;  but  in  the  last  month  I  haven't  been 
able  to;  and  it  is  very  disturbing." 

"Anyhow  we're  married,"  he  announced  com 
fortably. 

"That's  a  beautiful  way  to  feel,"  she  remarked. 
"I  appear  to  get  less  sure  of  things  as  I  grow  older, 
which  is  pathetic." 

He  wondered  what,  exactly,  she  meant  by  this. 
Honora  said  a  great  many  little  things  which,  their 
meaning  escaping  him,  gave  him  momentary 
doubts.  He  discovered  that  she  had  a  habit  of 
saying  things  indirectly,  and  that,  as  the  serious 
ness  of  the  occasion  increased,  her  manner  became 
lighter  and  he  could  depend  less  on  the  mere  or 
der  of  her  words.  This  continually  disconcerted 
him,  put  him  on  the  defensive  and  at  small  disad 
vantages:  he  was  never  quite  at  ease  with  Honora. 

Obversely — the  ugly  shade  of  mercenary  pur 
pose  dispelled — close  at  hand  his  admiration  for 

[104] 


THE   DARK    FLEECE 

her  grew.  Every  detail  of  her  living  was  as  fine 
as  that  publicly  exposed  in  the  drawing  room. 
She  was  not  rigidly  and  impossibly  perfect,  in,  for 
instance,  the  inflexible  attitude  of  Olive  Stanes; 
Honora  had  a  very  human  impatience,  she  could 
be  disagreeable,  he  found,  in  the  morning,  and  she 
undoubtedly  felt  herself  superior  to  the  common 
alty  of  life.  But  in  the  ordering  of  her  person 
there  was  a  wonderfully  exact  delicacy  and  fra 
grant  charm.  Just  as  she  had  no  formal  man 
ner,  so,  he  discovered,  she  possessed  no  "good" 
clothes;  she  dressed  evidently  from  some  inner 
necessity,  and  not  merely  for  the  sake  of  impres 
sion.  She  had,  too,  a  remarkable  vigor  of  expres 
sion;  Honora  was  not  above  swearing  at  contra 
dictory  circumstance;  and  she  was  so  free  of  small 
pruderies  that  often  she  became  a  cause  of  embar 
rassment  to  him.  At  times  he  would  tell  himself 
uneasily  that  her  conduct  was  not  quite  ladylike; 
but  at  the  same  instant  his  amusement  in  her  would 
mount  until  it  threatened  him  with  laughter. 

There  was  a  great  deal  to  be  learned  from  Hon 
ora,  he  told  himself;  and  then  he  would  speculate 
whether  he  were  progressing  in  that  acquisition; 
and  whether  she  were  happy;  no,  not  happy,  but 
contented.  Ignorant  of  her  reason  for  marrying, 
he  vaguely  dreaded  the  possibility  of  its  departure, 
mysterious  as  it  had  come,  leaving  her  regarding 
him  with  surprise  and  disdain.  He  tried  desper 
ately,  consciously,  to  hold  her  interest  and  esteem. 

[105] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

That  was  the  base  of  his  conception  of  their  mar 
ried  existence,  which,  then,  he  was  entirely  willing 
to  accept. 

However,  as  the  weeks  multiplied  without  bring 
ing  him  any  corresponding  increase  in  the  knowl 
edge  of  either  Honora  or  their  true  situation,  he 
was  aware  of  a  disturbance  born  of  his  very  plea 
sure  in  her;  an  uncomfortable  feeling  of  insecurity 
fastened  upon  him.  But  all  this  he  was  careful 
to  keep  hidden.  There  was  evidently  no  doubt  in 
the  minds  of  Cottarsport  of  the  enviableness  of  his 
position — with  all  that  gold,  wedded  to  Honora 
Canderay,  living  in  the  Canderay  mansion.  The 
more  solid  portion  of  the  town  gave  him  a  studied 
consideration  denied  to  the  mere  acquisition  of 
wealth;  and  the  rough  element,  once  his  companion 
but  now  relentlessly  held  at  a  distance,  regarded 
him  with  a  loud  disdain  fully  as  humanly  flatter 
ing.  Sometimes  with  Honora  he  passed  the  latter, 
and  they  grumbled  an  obscure  acknowledgment  of 
his  curt  greeting;  when  he  was  alone,  they  openly 
disparaged  his  attainments  and  qualified  pride. 

There  were  "Pack"  Glower,  an  able  seaman 
whose  indolent  character  had  dissipated  his  op 
portunities  of  employment  without  harming  his 
slow,  powerful  body;  Emery  Radlaw,  the  brother 
of  the  apothecary  and  a  graduate  of  Williams  Col 
lege,  a  man  of  vanished  refinements  and  taker  of 
strange  drugs,  as  thin  and  erratically  rapid  in 

[106] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

movements  as  Glower  was  slow;  Steven,  an  in 
credibly  soiled  Swede;  John  Vleet,  the  master  and 
part  owner  of  a  fishing  schooner,  a  capable  in 
dividual  on  the  sea,  but  an  insanely  violent  drunk 
ard  on  land.  There  were  others,  all  widely  dif 
ferent,  but  alike  in  the  bitterness  of  a  common 
failure  and  the  habit  of  assuaging  doubtful  self- 
esteem,  of  ministering  to  crawling  nerves,  with 
highly  potential  stimulation. 

Jason  passed  "Pack"  and  Emery  Radlaw  on  a 
day  of  late  March,  and  a  mocking  and  purposely 
audible  aside  almost  brought  him  to  an  adequate 
reply.  He  had  disposed  of  worse  men  than  these 
in  California  and  the  Isthmus.  His  arrogant 
temper  rose  and  threatened  to  master  ihim;  but 
something  more  powerful  held  him  steadily  and 
silently  on  his  way.  This  ;was  his  measureless 
admiration  for  Honora,  his  determination  to  in 
volve  her  in  nothing  that  would  detract  from  her 
fineness  and  erect  pride.  Brawling  on  the  street 
would  not  do  for  her  husband.  He  must  give  her 
no  cause  to  lessen  what  incomprehensible  feeling, 
liking,  she  might  have  for  him,  give  life  to  no  re 
grets  for  a  hasty  and  perhaps  only  half  considered 
act.  After  this,  in  passing  any  of  his  late  tem 
porary  associates,  he  failed  to  express  even  the  per 
functory  consciousness  of  their  being. 

»••••<!• 

In  April  he  was  obliged  to  admit  to  himself  that 
he  knew  no  more  of  Honora's  attitude  toward  him 

[107] 


THE    DARK   FLEECE 

than  on  the  day  of  their  wedding.  He  recognized 
that  she  made  no  show  of  emotion;  it  was  an  es 
sential  part  of  her  to  seem  at  all  times  unmoved. 
That  was  well  enough  for  the  face  she  turned  to 
ward  the  world;  but  directed  at  him,  her  husband, 
its  enigmatic  quality  began  to  obsess  his  mind. 
What  Honora  thought  of  him,  why  she  had  mar 
ried  him,  became  an  almost  continuous  question. 

It  bred  an  increasing  sense  of  instability  that 
became  loud,  defiant.  More  than  once  he  was  at 
the  point  of  self-betrayal:  query,  demand,  objec 
tion,  would  rise  on  a  temporary  angry  flood  to  his 
lips.  But,  struggling,  behind  a  face  as  unmoved 
as  Honora's  own,  he  would  suppress  his  resent 
ment,  the  sense  of  injury,  and  smoke  with  the  ap 
pearance  of  the  greatest  placidity. 

His  regard  for  his  wife  placed  an  extraordinary 
check  on  his  impulses  and  utterance.  He  deliber 
ated  carefully  over  his  speech,  watched  her  with  an 
attention  not  far  from  a  concealed  anxiety,  and  was 
quick  to  absorb  any  small  conventions  uncon 
sciously  indicated  by  her  remarks.  She  never  in 
structed  or  held  anything  over  him;  he  would  have 
been  acutely  sensitive  to  any  air  of  superiority, 
and  immediately  antagonized.  But  Honora  was 
entirely  free  from  pretensions  of  that  variety;  she 
was  as  clear  and  honest  as  a  goblet  of  water. 

Jason's  regard  for  her  grew  pace  by  pace  with  the 
feeling  of  baffling  doubt.  He  was  passing  through 
the  public  square,  and  his  thoughts  were  inter- 

[108] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

rupted  by  a  faint  drifting  sweetness.  "I  believe 
the  lilacs  are  out,"  he  said  unconsciously  aloud 
and  stopping.  His  surrounding  was  remarkably 
serene,  withdrawn — the  courthouse,  a  small  block 
of  brick  with  white  corniced  windows,  flat  Ionic 
portico,  and  slatted  wood  lantern  with  a  bell,  stood 
in  the  middle  of  the  grassy  common  shut  in  by  an 
irregular  rectangle  of  dwellings  with  low  eaves  and 
gardens.  The  sun  shone  with  a  beginning 
warmth  in  a  vague  sky  that  intensified  the  early 
green.  It  seemed  that  he  could  see,  against  a 
house,  the  lavender  blur  of  the  lilac  blossoms. 

Then  his  attention  was  attracted  by  the  figure 
of  a  man,  at  once  strange  and  familiar,  coming  to 
ward  him  with  a  dragging  gait.  Jason  studied  the 
other  until  a  sudden  recognition  clouded  his  coun 
tenance,  filled  him  with  a  swift,  unpleasant  sur 
prise. 

"Thomas!"  he  exclaimed.  "Whenever  did  you 
get  back?" 

"Yesterday,"  said  Thomas  Gast. 

Well,  here  was  Thomas  returned  from  Califor 
nia  like  himself.  Yet  the  most  negligent  view  of 
the  latter  revealed  that  there  was  a  vast  difference 
between  Jason  and  this  last  Argonaut — Thomas 
Cast's  loosely  hung  jaw,  which  gave  to  his  counte 
nance  an  air  of  irresolution,  was  now  exaggerated 
by  an  aspect  of  utter  defeat.  His  ill  conditioned 
clothes,  sodden  brogans,  and  stringy  handkerchief 
still  knotted  miner-fashion  about  his  throat,  all 

[109] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

multiplied  the  fact  of  failure  proclaimed  by  his 
attitude. 

"How  did  you  strike  it?"  Jason  uselessly  asked. 

"What  chance  has  the  prospector  today?"  the 
other  heatedly  and  indirectly  demanded.  "At  first 
a  man  could  pan  out  something  for  himself;  but  now 
it's  all  companies,  all  capital.  The  state's  inter 
fered  too,  claims  are  being  held  up  in  court  while 
their  owners  might  starve;  there  are  new  laws  and 
trimmings  every  week.  I  struck  it  rich  on  the  Keys, 
but  I  was  drove  out  before  I  could  get  my  stakes 
in.  They  tell  me  you  did  good." 

"At  last,"  Jason  replied. 

"And  married  Honora  Canderay,  too." 

The  other  assented  shortly. 

"Some  are  shot  with  luck,"  Thomas  Gast  pro 
claimed;  "they'd  fall  and  skin  their  face  on  a 
nugget." 

"How  did  you  come  back?" 

"Worked  my  passage  in  a  crazy  clipper  with 
moon-sails  and  the  halliards  padlocked  to  the  rail. 
Carried  away  the  foretopmast  and  yard  off  the  Horn 
and  ran  from  port  to  port  in  a  hundred  and  four 
days." 

The  conversation  dwindled  and  expired.  Thomas 
Gast  gazed  about  moodily,  and  Jason,  with  a  tight 
mouth,  nodded  and  moved  on.  His  mind  turned 
back  abruptly  to  Eddie  Lukens,  the  man  who  had 
robbed  him  of  his  find  in  the  early  days  of  cradle 
mining,  the  man  he  had  killed. 

[110] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

He  had  said  nothing  of  this  to  Honora;  the  ex 
perience  with  Olive  Stanes  had  convinced  him  of 
the  advisability  of  keeping  past  accident  where,  he 
now  repeated,  it  belonged.  He  despaired  of  ever 
being  able,  in  Cottarsport,  to  explain  the  place  and 
times  that  had  made  his  act  comprehensible.  How 
could  he  picture,  here,  the  narrow  ravines  cut  by 
swift  rivers  from  the  stupendous  slopes  and  forests 
of  the  Sierra  Nevada,  the  isolation  of  a  handful  of 
men  with  their  tents  by  a  plunging  stream  in  a  rift 
so  deep  that  there  would  be  only  a  brief  glimmer 
of  sunlight  at  noon?  And,  failing  that,  the 
ignorant  could  never  grasp  the  significance  of  the 
stillness,  the  timeless  shadows,  which  the  miners 
penetrated  in  their  madness  for  gold.  They'd  never 
realize  the  strangling  passion  of  this  search  in  a 
wilderness  without  habitation  or  law  or  safety. 
They  could  not  understand  the  primary  justice  of 
such  rude  courts  as  the  miners  were  able  to  maintain 
on  the  more  populous  outskirts  of  the  region. 

He,  Jason  Burrage,  had  been  tried  by  a  jury  for 
killing  Eddie  Lukens,  and  had  been  exonerated.  It 
had  been  months  since  he  had  reiterated  this  dreary 
and  only  half  satisfying  formula.  The  inner  neces 
sity  filled  him  with  a  shapeless  concern  such  as 
might  have  been  caused  by  a  constant,  unnatural 
shadow  flickering  out  at  his  back.  He  almost 
wished  that  he  had  told  Honora  at  the  beginning; 
and  then  he  fretfully  cursed  the  incertitude  of  life 
— whatever  he  did  appeared,  shortly  after,  wrong. 

tin] 


THE    DARK   FLEECE 

But  it  was  obvious  that  he  couldn't  go  to  her  with 
the  story  today;  the  only  time  for  that  had  been 
before  his  marriage;  now  it  would  have  the  look  of 
a  confession  of  weakness,  opportunely  timed;  and 
he  could  think  of  nothing  more  calculated  to  antago 
nize  Honora  than  such  a  crumbling  admission. 

All  this  had  been  re-animated  by  the  mere  pres 
ence  of  Thomas  Gast  in  Cottarsport;  certainly,  he 
concluded,  an  insufficient  reason  for  his  troubling. 
Gast  had  been  a  miner,  too,  he  was  familiar  with 
the  conditions  in  the  West.  .  .  .  There  was  a  great 
probability  that  he  hadn't  even  heard  of  the  unfor 
tunate  affair;  while  Olive  Stanes  would  be  dragged 
to  death  rather  than  garble  a  word  of  what  he  had 
told  her:  Jason  willingly  acknowledged  this  of 
Olive.  He  resolutely  banished  the  whole  complica 
tion  from  his  mind ;  and,  walking  with  Honora  after 
supper  over  the  garden(in  back  of  their  house,  he 
was  again  absorbed  by  her  vivid  delicate  charm. 

The  garden  was  deep  and  narrow,  a  flight  of 
terraces  connected  by  a  flagged  path  and  steps.  At 
the  bottom  were  the  bergamot  pear  trees  that  had 
been  Ithiel  Canderay's  especial  charge  in  his  last, 
retired  years.  Their  limbs,  faintly  blurred  with 
new  foliage,  rose  above  the  wall,  against  a  tranquil 
evening  sky  with  a  white  slip  of  May  moon.  The 
peace  momentarily  disturbed  in  Jason  Burrage's 
heart  flooded  back,  a  sense  of  great  well-being 
settled  over  him.  Honora  rested  her  hand  within 
his  arm  at  an  inequality  of  the  stone  walk. 

[112] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

"I  am  really  a  very  bad  wife,  Jason,"  she  said 
suddenly;  "self-absorbed  and  inattentive." 

"You  suit  me,"  he  replied  inadequately.  He  was 
extraordinarily  moved  by  her  remark :  she  had  never 
before  even  suggested  that  she  was  conscious  of 
obligation.  He  wanted  to  put  into  words  some  of 
the  warmth  of  feeling  which  filled  his  heart,  but 
suitable  speech  evaded  him.  He  could  not  shake 
off  the  fear  that  such  protestations  might  be  displeas 
ing  to  her  restrained  being.  Moving  slightly  away 
from  him  she  seemed,  in  the  soft  gloom,  more  won 
derful  than  ever.  Set  in  white  against  the  depths 
of  the  garden,  her  face,  dimly  visible,  appeared  to 
be  without  its  customary  faintly  mocking  smile. 

"Do  you  remember,  Jason,"  she  continued,  "how 
I  once  said  I  thought  I  was  marrying  you  because 
I  was  lonely,  and  that  I  found  out  it  wasn't  so? 
I  didn't  know  why."  She  paused. 

He  was  enveloped  by  an  intense  eagerness  to 
hear  her  to  the  end:  it  might  be  that  something 
beyond  his  greatest  hopes  was  to  follow.  But  dis 
appointment  overtook  him. 

"I  was  certain  I'd  see  more  clearly  into  myself 
soon,  but  I  haven't;  it's  been  useless  trying.  And 
I've  decided  to  do  this — to  give  up  thinking  about 
things  for  myself,  and  to  wait  for  you  to  show  me." 

"But  I  can't  do  that,"  he  protested,  facing  her; 
"more  than  half  the  time  I  wonder  over  almost 
that  same  question — why  you  ever  married  me?" 

"This  is   a   frightful   situation,"  she   observed 
[113] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

with  a  return  of  her  familiar  manner;  "two  mature 
people  joined  for  life,  and  neither  with  the  slightest 
idea  of  the  reason.  Anyhow  I  have  given  it  up. 
...  I  suppose  I'll  die  in  ignorance.  Perhaps  I 
was  too  old " 

He  interrupted  her  with  an  uncustomary  in 
civility,  a  heated  denunciation  of  what  she  had 
been  about  to  say. 

"So  you  are  not  sorry,"  he  remarked  after  a  little. 

"No,"  she  answered  slowly,  "and  I'm  certain  I 
shan't  be.  I'm  not  that  sort  of  person.  I  would 
go  down  to  ruin  sooner  than  regret."  She  said  no 
more,  but  went  into  the  house,  leaving  Jason  in 
the  potent  spring  night. 

There  was  no  longer  any  doubt  about  the  lilacs: 
the  air  was  laden  with  their  scent.  An  entire  hedge 
of  them  must  have  blossomed  as  he  was  standing 
there.  He  moved  to  the  terrace  below:  there  might 
be  buds  on  the  pear  trees.  But  it  was  impossible 
to  see  the  limbs.  How  could  Honora  expect  him 
to  make  their  marriage  clear?  He  had  never  be 
fore  seen  her  face  so  serene.  He  thought  that  he 
heard  a  vague  stir  outside  the  wall,  and  he  remem 
bered  the  presence  of  a  semi-public  path.  Now 
there  was  a  cautious  mutter  of  voices.  He  ad 
vanced  a  step,  then  stopped  at  a  scrambling  of 
shoes  against  the  wall.  A  vague  form  shouldered 
into  view,  momentarily  clinging  above  him,  and  a 
harsh  voice  cried: 

"Murderer!" 

[114] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 


Even  above  the  discordant  clash  of  his  startled 
sensibilities  rose  the  fear,  instantaneously  born, 
that  Honora  had  heard.  All  the  vague  uneasiness 
which  had  possessed  him  at  Thomas  Gast's  return 
solidified  into  a  recognizable,  leaden  dread — the 
conviction  that  his  wife  must  learn  the  story  of  his 
misadventure,  told  with  animus  and  lies.  Then 
a  more  immediate  dread  held  him  rigidly  attentive: 
there  might  be  a  second  cry,  a  succession  of  them 
shouted  discordantly  to  the  sky.  Honora  would 
come  out,  the  servants  gather,  while  that  accusing 
voice,  indistinguishable  and  disembodied  by  the 
night,  proclaimed  his  error.  This  was  not  the 
shooting  of  Eddie  Lukens,  but  the  neglect  to  com 
prehend  Honora  Canderay. 

Absolute  silence  followed.  He  made  a  motion 
toward  the  wall,  but,  oppressed  by  the  futility  of 
such  an  act,  arrested  himself  in  the  midst  of  a  step 
and  stood  with  a  foot  extended.  The  stillness 
seemed  to  thicken  the  air  until  he  could  hardly 
breathe;  he  was  seized  by  a  sullen  anger  at  the 
events  which  had  gathered  to  betray  him.  The 
crying  tones  had  been  like  a  chemical  acting  on 
his  complexity,  changing  him  to  an  entirely  dif 
ferent  entity,  darkening  his  being;  the  peace  and 
fragrance  of  the  night  were  destroyed  by  the  anxiety 
that  now  sat  upon  him. 

Convinced  that  nothing  more  was  to  follow  here, 
[115] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

he  was  both  impelled  into  the  house,  to  Honora, 
and  held  motionless  by  the  fear  of  seeing  her  turn 
toward  him  with  her  familiar  light  surprise  and  a 
question.  However,  he  slowly  retraced  his  way 
over  the  terraces,  through  a  trellis  hung  with  grape 
vines,  and  into  the  hall.  As  he  hoped,  Honora 
was  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  dwelling.  She  had 
heard  nothing.  Jason  sat  down  heavily,  his  gaze 
lowered  and  somber. 

The  feeling  smote  him  that  he  should  tell 
Honora  of  the  whole  miserable  business  at  once, 
make  what  excuse  for  himself  was  possible,  and 
prepare  her  for  the  inevitable  public  revelation.  He 
pronounced  her  name,  with  the  intention  of  doing 
this;  but  she  showed  him  such  a  tranquil,  superfine 
face  that  he  was  unable  to  proceed.  Her  interroga 
tion  held  for  a  moment  and  then  left  him,  redirected 
to  a  minute,  colorful  square  of  glass  beads. 

A  multiplication  of  motives  kept  him  silent,  but 
principal  among  them  was  the  familiar  shrinking 
from  appearing  to  his  wife  in  any  little  or  mean 
guise.  It  was  precisely  into  such  a  peril  that  he  had 
been  forced.  He  felt,  now,  that  she  would  overlook 
a  murder  such  as  the  one  he  had  committed  far  more 
easily  than  an  intangible  error  of  spirit.  He  could 
actually  picture  Honora,  in  his  place,  shooting 
Eddie  Lukens;  but  he  couldn't  imagine  her  in  his 
humiliating  situation  of  a  few  minutes  before. 

He  turned  to  the  consideration  of  who  it  might 
be  that  had  called  over  the  wall,  and  immediately 

[116] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

recognized  that  it  was  one  of  a  small  number,  one 
of  "Pack"  Glower's  gang:  Thomas  Gast  would 
have  gravitated  quickly  to  their  company,  and  their 
resentment  of  his,  Jason  Burrage's,  place  in  life 
must  have  been  nicely  increased  by  Gast's  jealousy. 
The  latter,  Jason  knew,  had  not  washed  an  honest 
pan  of  gravel  in  his  journey  and  search  for  a 
mythical  easy  wealth ;  he  had  hardly  left  the  littered 
fringe  of  San  Francisco,  but  had  filled  progres 
sively  menial  places  in  the  less  admirable  resorts 
and  activities. 

With  so  much  established  beyond  doubt  he  was 
confronted  by  the  necessity  for  immediate  action, 
the  possibility  of  yet  averting  all  that  threatened 
him,  of  preserving  his  good  opinion  in  Honora's 
eyes.  Glower  and  Emery  Radlaw  and  the  rest, 
with  the  balance  of  neither  property  nor  position, 
lawless  and  inflamed  with  drink,  were  a  difficult 
opposition.  He  repeated  that  he  had  mastered 
worse,  but  out  in  California,  where  a  man  had 
been  nakedly  a  man;  and  then  he  hadn't  been 
married.  There  he  would  have  found  them  at 
once,  and  an  explosion  of  will,  perhaps  of  powder, 
would  soon  have  cleared  the  atmosphere.  But  in 
Cottarsport,  with  so  much  to  keep  intact,  he  was 
all  but  powerless. 

Yet,  the  following  day,  when  he  saw  the  apothe 
cary's  brother  enter  the  combined  drug  and  liquor 
store,  he  followed;  and,  to  his  grim  satisfaction, 
found  Thomas  Gast  already  inside.  The  apothe- 

[117] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

cary  gave  Jason  an  inhospitable  stare,  but  the  latter 
ignored  him,  striding  toward  Gast.  "Just  what  is 
it  you've  brought  East  about  me?"  he  demanded. 

The  other  avoided  the  query,  his  gaze  shifting 
over  the  floor.  "Well?"  Jason  insisted,  after  a 
pause.  Thomas  Gast  was  leaning  against  a  high 
counter  at  one  side,  behind  which  shelves  held 
various  bottles  and  paper  boxes  and  tins.  The 
counter  itself  was  laden  with  scales  and  a  mortar, 
powders  and  vividly  striped  candy  in  tall  glass 
jars. 

"You  know  well  as  I  do,"  Gast  finally  admitted. 

"Then  we're  both  certain  there's  no  reason  for 
name-calling  over  my  back  wall." 

"You  shot  him,  didn't  you?"  the  other  asked 
thinly.  "You  can't  get  away  from  the  fact  that 
you  killed  a  pardner." 

"I  did,"  said  Jason  Burrage  harshly.  "He 
robbed  me.  But  I  didn't  shout  thief  at  him  from 
the  safety  of  the  dark;  it  was  right  after  dinner, 
the  middle  of  the  day.  He  was  ready  first,  too; 
but  I  shot  him.  Can  you  get  anything  from  that?" 

"You  ought  to  realize  this  isn't  San  Francisco," 
Radlaw,  the  drug  taker,  put  in.  "A  man  couldn't 
be  coolly  derringered  in  Cottarsport.  There's  law 
here,  there's  order."  He  had  a  harried  face,  dulled 
eyes  under  a  fine  brow,  a  tremulous  flabby  mouth, 
with  white  crystals  of  powder  adhering  to  its  cor 
ners,  and  a  countenance  like  the  yellow  oilskins  of 
the  fishermen. 

[118] 


THE    DARK   FLEECE 

Jason  turned  darkly  in  his  direction.  "What 
have  you  or  Glower  got  to  do  with  law?" 

"Not  only  them,"  the  apothecary  interposed, 
"but  all  the  other  men  of  the  town  are  interested  in 
keeping  it  orderly.  We'll  have  no  western 
rowdyism  in  Cottarsport." 

"Then  hear  this,"  Jason  again  addressed  Thomas 
Gast;  "see  that  you  tell  the  truth  and  all  the  truth. 
My  past  belongs  to  me,  and  I  don't  aim  to  have  it 
maligned  by  any  empty  liar  back  from  the  Coast. 
And  either  of  you  Radlaws — I'm  not  going  to  be 
blanketed  by  the  town  drunkards  or  old  women, 
either.  If  I  have  shot  one  man  I  can  shoot  an 
other,  and  I  care  this  much  for  your  talk — if  any 
of  this  muck  is  allowed  to  annoy  Mrs.  Burrage  I'll 
kill  whoever  starts  it,  spang  in  the  middle  of  day." 

"That's  where  it  gets  him,"  the  ex-scholar  stated. 

"Just  there,"  Jason  agreed;  "and  this  Gast,  who 
has  brought  so  much  back  from  California,  can 
tell  you  this,  too — that  I  had  the  name  of  finishing 
what  I  began." 

But,  once  more  outside,  alone,  his  appearance  of 
resolution  vanished:  the  merest  untraceable  rumor 
would  be  sufficient  to  accomplish  all  that  he  feared, 
damage  him  irreparably  with  Honora.  He  was 
far  older  in  spirit  and  body  than  he  had  been  back 
on  Indian  Bar;  he  had  passed  the  tumultuous  years 
of  living.  The  labor  and  privation,  the  continu 
ous  immersion  in  frigid  streams,  had  lessened  his 
vitality,  sapped  his  ability  for  conflict.  All  that  he 

[119] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

now  wished  was  the  happiness  of  his  wife,  Honora, 
and  the  quietude  of  their  big,  peaceful  house;  the 
winter  evenings  by  the  Franklin  stove  and  the 
spring  evenings  with  the  windows  open  and  the 
candles  guttering  in  the  mild,  lilac-hung  air. 

Together  with  his  uncertainty  the  pleasure  in 
the  sheer  fact  of  his  wife  increased;  and  with  it  the 
old  wonderment  at  their  situation  returned.  What, 
for  instance,  did  she  mean  by  saying  that  he  must 
explain  her  to  herself?  He  tried  again  all  the 
conventional  reasons  for  marriage  without  satisfac 
tion:  the  sentimental  and  material  equally  failed. 
Jason  felt  that  if  he  could  penetrate  this  mystery 
his  grasp  on  actuality  would  be  enormously  im 
proved;  he  might,  with  such  knowledge,  success 
fully  defy  Thomas  Gast  and  all  that  past  which 
equally  threatened  to  reach  out  destructively  into 
the  future. 

His  happiness,  in  its  new  state  of  fragility, 
became  infinitely  precious;  a  thing  to  dwell  on  at 
nights,  to  ponder  over  walking  through  the  town. 
Then,  disagreeably  aware  of  what  overshadowed 
him,  he  would  watch  such  passersby  as  spoke, 
searching  for  some  sign  of  the  spreading  of  his  old 
fault.  Often  he  imagined  that  he  saw  such  an  in 
dication,  and  he  would  hurry  home,  in  a  panic  of 
haste — which  was,  too,  intense  reluctance — to  dis 
cover  if  Honora  yet  knew. 

He  approached  her  a  hundred  times  determined 
[120] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

to  end  his  misery  of  suspense,  and  face  the  incal 
culable  weight  of  her  disdain;  but  on  each  occasion 
he  failed  as  he  had  at  the  first.  Now  his  admis 
sion  seemed  too  damned  roundabout;  in  an  un 
flattering  way  forced  upon  him.  His  position  was 
too  insecure,  he  told  himself.  .  .  .  Perhaps  the 
threat  in  the  apothecary's  shop  would  be  sufficient 
to  shut  the  mouth  of  rumor.  It  had  not  been 
empty;  he  was  still  capable  of  uncalculating  rage. 
How  closely  was  Honora  bound  to  him?  What 
did  she  think  of  him  at  heart? 

He  couldn't  bear  to  remember  how  he  had  laid 
open  her  dignity,  the  dignity  and  position  of  the 
Canderays  in  Cottarsport,  to  whispered  vilification. 
Connected  with  him  she  was  being  discussed  in 
"Pack"  Glower's  shanty.  His  mind  revolved  end 
lessly  about  the  same  few  topics,  he  elaborated  and 
discarded  countless  schemes  to  secure  Honora.  He 
even  considered  giving  Thomas  Gast  a  sum  of 
money  to  repair  what  harm  the  latter  had  wrought. 
Useless — his  danger  flourished  on  hatred  and  envy 
and  malice.  However  exculpable  the  killing  of 
Eddie  Lukens  had  been,  the  results  were  immeasur 
ably  unfortunate,  for  a  simple  act  of  violent  local 
justice. 

They  were  in  the  carriage  above  Cottarsport; 
Coggs  had  died  through  the  winter,  and  his  place 
been  taken  by  a  young  coachman  from  the  city. 
The  horses  rested  somnolently  in  their  harness,  the 
bright  bits  of  rubbed  silver  plate  shining.  Honora 

[121] 


THE    DARK   FLEECE 

was  looking  out  over  the  harbor,  a  gentian  blue 
expanse.  "Good  Heavens,"  she  cried  with  sudden 
energy,  "I  am  getting  old  at  a  sickening  rate. 
Only  last  year  the  schooners  and  sea  made  me  as 
restless  as  a  gull.  I  wanted  to  sail  to  the  farthest 
places;  but  now  the  boats  are — are  no  more  than 
boats.  It  fatigues  me  to  think  of  their  jumping 
about;  and  I  haven't  walked  down  to  the  wharves 
for  six  weeks.  Do  I  look  a  haggard  fright?" 

"You  seem  as  young  as  before  I  went  to  Cali 
fornia,"  he  replied  simply.  She  did.  A  strand  of 
hair  had  slipped  from  its  net,  and  wavered  across 
her  flawless  cheek,  her  lips  were  bright  and  smooth, 
her  shoulders  slimly  square. 

"You're  a  marvelous  woman,  Honora,"  he  told 
her. 

She  gazed  at  him,  smiling.  "I  wonder  if  you 
realize  that  that  is  your  first  compliment  of  our 
entire  wedded  life?" 

"Ridiculous,"  he  declared  incredulously. 

"Isn't  it?" 

"I  mean  I'm  complimenting  you  all  the  time. 
I  think " 

"You  can  hardly  expect  me  to  hear  thoughts," 
she  interrupted. 

He  silently  debated  another — it  was  to  be  about 
the  ribbon  on  her  throat — but  decided  against  giv 
ing  it  voice.  Why,  like  the  reasons  for  so  much 
else,  he  was  unable  to  say;  they  all  had  their  root 
in  the  blind  sense  of  the  uncertainty  of  his  situation. 

[122] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

Throughout  the  evening  his  thoughts  shifted  cease 
lessly  from  one  position  to  another.  This,  he 
realized,  could  not  continue  indefinitely;  soon,  from 
within  or  out,  Honora  and  himself  must  be  revealed 
to  each  other.  He  was  permeated  by  the  weariness 
of  constant  strain ;  the  peace  of  the  past  months  had 
been  destroyed;  it  seemed  to  him  that  he  had  be 
come  an  alien  to  the  serenity  of  the  high,  tranquil 
rooms  and  of  his  wife. 

He  rose  early  the  following  morning,  and  de 
scended  into  a  rapt  purity  of  sunlight  and  the 
ecstatic  whistling  of  robins.  The  front  door  had 
not  been  opened;  and,  as  he  turned  its  shining  brass 
knob,  his  gaze  fell  upon  a  sheet  of  paper  projecting 
below.  Jason  bent,  securing  it,  and,  with  a  pre 
monition  of  evil,  thrust  the  folded  scrap  into  his 
pocket.  He  turned  through  the  house  into  the  gar 
den;  and  there  privately  scrutinized  a  half  sheet 
with  a  clumsily  formed,  disguised  writing: 

"This,"  he  read,  "will  serve  you  notice  to  move 
on.  Dangerous  customers  are  not  desired  here. 
Take  a  suggestion  in  time  and  skip  bad  conse 
quences.  You  can't  hide  back  of  your  wife's 
hoops."  It  was  signed  "Committee." 

A  robin  was  thrilling  the  air  with  melody  above 
his  head.  Jason  listened  mechanically  as  the  bird 
ended  his  song  and  flew  away.  Then  the  realiza 
tion  of  what  he  had  found  overwhelmed  him  with  a 

[123] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

strangling  bitterness:  he,  Jason  Burrage,  had  been 
ordered  from  his  birthplace,  he  had  been  threatened 
and  accused  of  hiding  behind  a  woman,  by  the  off- 
scouring  of  the  alleys  and  rum  holes.  A  feeling 
of  impotence  thrust  its  chilling  edge  into  the  swell 
ing  heat  of  his  resentment.  He  would  have  to 
stand  like  a  condemned  animal  before  the  impend 
ing  fatal  blow;  he  was  held  motionless,  helpless, 
by  every  circumstance  of  his  life  and  hopes. 

He  crumpled  the  warning  in  a  clenched  hand. 
How  Cottarsport  would  point  and  jeer  at  him,  at 
Jason  Burrage  who  was  Honora  Canderay's  hus 
band,  a  murderer;  Jason,  who  had  returned  from 
California  with  the  gold  fleece!  It  wasn't  golden, 
he  told  himself,  but  stained — a  fleece  dark  with 
blood,  tarnished  from  hellish  unhappiness,  a  thing 
infected  with  immeasurable  miseries.  Its  edge  had 
fallen  on  Olive  Stanes  and  left  her — he  had  passed 
her  only  yesterday — dry-lipped  and  shrunken  into 
sterile  middle  age.  It  promised  him  only  sorrow, 
and  now  its  influence  was  reaching  up  toward 
Honora,  in  herself  serenely  apart  from  the  muck 
and  defilement  out  of  which  he  thought  he  had 
struggled. 

The  sun,  rising  over  the  bright  spring  foliage, 
filled  the  garden  with  sparkling  color.  His  wife, 
in  a  filmy  white  dress,  called  him  to  breakfast. 
She  waited  for  him  with  her  faint  smile,  against 
the  cool  interior.  He  went  forward  isolated,  lonely, 
in  his  secret  distress. 

[124] 


THE    DARK   FLEECE 

This  communication,  like  the  spoken  accusation 
of  a  previous  evening,  was,  apparently,  bare  of 
other  consequences.  Jason's  exterior  life  pro 
gressed  without  a  deviation  from  its  usual  smooth 
course.  It  was  clear  to  him  that  no  version  of  the 
facts  about  the  killing  of  Eddie  Lukens  had  yet 
spread  in  Cottarsport.  This,  he  decided,  consider 
ing  the  character  of  Thomas  Gast,  the  oblique 
quality  of  his  statements,  was  natural.  He  could 
not  doubt  that  such  public  revelation,  if  threat  and 
intimidation  failed,  must  come.  Meanwhile  he 
was  victimized  by  a  growing  uncertainty — from 
what  direction  would  the  next  attack  thrust? 

He  smiled  grimly  to  himself  at  the  memory  of 
the  withdrawn  and  secure  aspect  of  the  town  when 
he  had  first  returned  from  the  West.  To  him, 
striding  across  the  hills  from  the  Dumner  stage,  it 
had  resembled  an  ultimate  haven.  The  seeming 
harmony  and  peace  of  the  grey  fold  of  houses  about 
their  placid  harbor  had  concealed  possibilities  of 
debasement  as  low  as  California's  worst  camps. 
Now,  successful,  when  he  had  looked  for  the  re 
ward  of  his  long  years  of  brutal  toil,  the  end  of 
struggle,  he  was  confronted  by  the  ugliest  situation 
of  his  existence. 

He  was  glad  that  he  had  always  been  a  silent 
man,  or  Honora  would  have  noticed  and  demanded 
the  cause  of  the  moroseness  which  must  have  settled 
over  him.  They  sat  no  longer  before  the  stove  in 

[125] 


THE    DARK   FLEECE 

the  drawing  room,  but  on  a  side  porch  that  com 
manded  an  expanse  of  lawn  and  a  high  privet 
hedge,  while  he  smoked  morosely  a-t  the  inevitable 
cheroots,  gloomily  searching  for  a  way  from  the 
difficulty  closing  in  upon  him. 

Honora  had  been  to  Boston,  and  she  was  de 
scribing  lightly  an  encounter  with  her  aunt,  Herriot 
Cozzens.  He  was  only  half  conscious  of  her 
amused  voice.  Clouds  had  obscured  the  evening 
sky,  and  there  was  an  air  of  suspense,  like  that 
preceding  a  thunder  storm,  in  the  thickening  dark. 
A  restlessness  filled  Jason  which  he  was  unable  to 
resist;  and,  with  a  short,  vague  explanation,  he 
rose  and  proceeded  out  upon  the  street.  There,  his 
hands  clasped  behind  his  back  and  head  lowered, 
he  wandered  on,  lost  in  inner  despondence. 

He  turned  into  the  courthouse  square,  dimly 
lighted  by  gas  lamps  at  its  outer  confines,  and 
paced  across  the  grass,  stirring  a  few  wan  fireflies. 
It  was  blacker  still  beyond  the  courthouse.  He 
stumbled  slightly,  recovered  himself,  and  wearily 
commenced  a  return  home.  But  he  had  scarcely 
taken  a  step  when  a  figure  closed  in  upon  him, 
materializing  suddenly  out  of  the  darkness.  He 
stopped  and  was  about  to  speak  when  a  violent 
blow  from  behind  grazed  his  head  and  fell  with  a 
splintering  impact  on  his  shoulder.  He  stood  for 
a  moment  bewildered  by  the  unexpected  pain ;  then, 
as  he  saw  another  shape,  and  another,  gather 
around  him,  he  came  sharply  to  his  senses.  His 

[126] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

hand  thrust  into  a  pocket,  but  it  was  empty — he 
had  laid  aside  the  derringer  in  Cottarsport. 

His  assailants  grappled  with  him  swiftly,  and 
he  swayed  struggling  and  hitting  out  with  short 
blows  in  the  center  of  a  silent,  vicious  conflict.  A 
rough  hard  palm  was  crushed  against  his  mouth, 
a  head  ground  into  his  throat,  and  a  heavy, 
mucous  breath  of  rum  smote  him.  There  was 
muttered  cursing,  and  low,  disregarded  commands. 
A  cotton  handkerchief,  evidently  used  as  a  mask, 
tore  off  in  Jason's  hand;  strained  voices,  their 
caution  lost  in  passion,  took  unmistakably  the  ac 
cents  of  "Pack"  Glower  and  the  Swede,  Steven. 
A  thinner  tone  outside  the  swirling  bodies  cried 
low  and  urgent,  "Get  it  done  with."  A  fist  was 
driven  again  Jason's  side,  leaving  a  sharp,  stabbing 
hurt,  a  heavy  kick  tore  his  thigh.  Then  he  got 
his  fingers  into  a  neck  and  put  into  the  grip  all  the 
sinewy  strength  got  by  long  years  with  a  miner's 
pan  and  shovel.  A  choked  sob  responded,  and 
blood  spread  stickily  over  his  palms. 

It  seemed  to  Jason  Burrage  that  he  was  shaking 
himself  free,  that  he  was  victorious;  with  a  final 
supreme  wrench  he  stood  alone,  breathing  in  gusts. 
There  was  a  second's  imponderable  stillness,  and 
then  the  entire  night  appeared  to  crash  down  upon 
his  head  .  .  . 

He  thought  it  was  the  flumed  river,  all  their 
summer's  labor,  bursting  over  him.  He  was 

[127] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

whirled  downward  through  a  swift  course  of  jagged 
pains,  held  under  the  hurtling  water  and  planks 
and  stones.  He  fought,  blind  and  strangled,  but 
he  was  soon  crushed  into  a  supine  nothingness. 
Far  below,  the  river  discharged  him:  he  was  lying 
beside  a  slaty  bank  in  which  the  gold  glittered  like 
fine  and  countless  fish  scales.  But  he  couldn't 
move,  and  the  bank  flattened  into  a  plain  under  a 
gloomy  ridge,  with  a  camp  of  miners.  He  saw 
that  it  was  Sunday,  for  the  men  were  all  grouped 
before  the  tents  singing.  There  was  Eddie  Lukens 
gravely  waving  a  hand  to  the  beat  of  the  melody: 

"  'Don't  you  cry  for  me. 
I'm  going  to  Calaveras 
With  my  wash  bowl  on  my  knee.'  " 

It  was  undoubtedly  Eddie,  his  partner,  but  he 
had  never  seen  him  so  white  and — why,  he  had  a 
hole  over  his  eye!  Eddie  Lukens  was  dead;  it 
wasn't  decent  for  him  to  be  standing  up,  flapping 
his  hands  and  singing.  Jason  bent  forward  to 
remonstrate,  to  persuade  him  to  go  back — back  to 
where  the  dead  belonged.  Then  he  remembered, 
but  it  was  too  late:  Eddie  had  him  in  an  iron 
clutch,  he  was  dragging  him,  too,  down. 

Jason  made  a  convulsive  effort  to  escape,  he 
threw  back  his  head,  gasping;  and  saw  Honora, 
his  wife,  bending  over  him.  The  tormenting  illu 
sion  slowly  perished — this  was  Cottarsport  and  not 
California,  he  was  back  again  in  the  East,  the  pre 
sent,  married  to  Honora  Canderay.  An  astounding 

[128] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

fact,  but  so.  Through  the  window  of  his  room  he 
could  see  the  foliage  of  a  great  horse-chestnut  tree 
that  stood  by  the  side  walk;  it  was  swelling  into 
flower.  Full  memory  now  flooded  back  upon  him, 
and  with  it  the  realization  that  probably  his  hap 
piness  was  destroyed. 

It  was  impossible  to  tell  how  much  Honora  knew 
of  the  cause  of  the  assault  upon  him.  She  was 
always  like  that — enigmatic.  But,  whatever  she 
knew  now,  soon  she  would  have  to  hear  all.  Even 
if  he  wished  to  lie,  it  would  be  impossible  to  fabri 
cate,  maintain,  a  convincing  cover  for  what  had 
happened.  The  most  superficial,  necessary  in 
vestigation  would  expose  the  story  brought  home 
by  Thomas  Gast. 

The  time  had  come  when  he  must  confide  every 
thing  to  Honora;  perhaps  she  would  overlook  his 
cowardice.  About  to  address  her,  he  fell  into  a 
bottomless  coma,  and  a  day  passed  before  he  had 
gathered  himself  sufficiently  to  undertake  his  task. 
She  was  sitting  facing  him,  her  chair  by  a  window, 
where  her  fingers  were  swiftly  and  smoothly  oc 
cupied.  Her  features  were  a  little  blurred  against 
the  light,  and — her  disconcerting  scrutiny  veiled — 
he  felt  this  to  be  an  assistance. 

"Those  men  who  broke  me  up,"  he  began  dis- 
jointedly,  surprised  at  the  thin  uncertainty  of  his 
voice,  "I  know  pretty  well  who  they  are.  Ought 
to  get  most  of  them." 

"We  thought  you  could  say,"  she  rejoined  in  an 
[129] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

even  tone.  "Some  guesses  were  made,  but  it 
was  better  to  wait  till  you  could  give  a  state 
ment." 

"Am  I  badly  hurt,  Honora?"  he  asked  suddenly. 

"Not  dangerously,"  she  assured  him.  "You 
have  splendid  powers  of  recuperation." 

"I'll  have  to  go  on,"  he  added  hurriedly,  "and 
tell  you  the  rest — why  I  was  beaten." 

"It  would  be  better  not,"  she  stated.  "You 
ought  to  be  as  calm  as  possible.  It  may  quiet  you, 
Jason,  to  hear  that  I  know  now." 

"You  know  what  the  town  has  been  saying,"  he 
cried  in  bitter  revolt,  "what  lies  Thomas  Gast 
spread.  You've  heard  all  the  envy  and  malice 
and  drunken  vileness  of  sots.  It  isn't  right  for 
you  to  think  you  know  before  I  could  speak  a 
word  of  defense." 

"Not  only  what  the  town  says,  Jason,"  she 
replied  simply,  "but  the  truth.  Olive  Stanes  told 


me." 


"Then ."  An  excited  weakness  broke  his 

voice  in  a  sob,  and  Honora  rose,  crossing  the  room 
to  his  bed.  "You  must  positively  stop  talking  of 
this  now,"  she  directed.  "If  you  attempt  it  I  shall 
go  away  and  send  a  nurse." 

He  was  helpless  against  her  will,  and  sank  into 
semi-slumberous  wonder.  Honora  knew  all: 
Olive  Stanes  had  told  her.  She  was  as  non 
committal,  he  complained  to  himself,  as  a  wooden 
Indian.  She  might  have  excused  him  without  a 

[130] 


THE   DARK   FLEECE 

second  thought,  and  it  might  be  that  she  had 
finished  with  him  entirely,  that  she  was  merely 
dispensing  a  charity  and  duty;  and,  moving  un 
easily,  or  lying  propped  up  in  a  temporary  release 
from  suffering,  he  would  study  her  every  move 
ment  in  an  endeavor  to  gain  her  all-important 
opinion  of  him  as  he  had  been  lately  revealed.  It 
was  useless;  he  was  always,  Jason  felt,  in  a  state 
of  disturbing  suspense. 

He  determined  to  end  it,  however,  in  spite  of 
what  Honora  had  said,  on  an  afternoon  when  he 
was  supported  down  to  the  street  and  the  carriage. 
His  wife  took  her  place  at  his  side,  and  they  rolled 
forward  into  the  expansive  warmth  of  summer. 
Jason  was  impressed  by  the  sheer  repetition  of  life; 
and  it  seemed  to  him  that  this  was  the  greatest 
happiness  possible — such  a  procession  of  days  and 
drives,  with  Honora. 

Her  throat  rose  delicately  from  ruffled  lace, 
circled  by  a  narrow  black  velvet  band  with  a  clasp 
of  remarkable  diamonds;  and  he  smiled  at  the 
memory  of  how  he  had  once  thought  she  was 
marrying  him  for  money.  That  seemed  years  ago, 
but  he  was  no  nearer  the  solution  of  her  motive 
now  than  then.  Her  slim  hands  were  folded  in 
her  lap — how  beautifully  they  were  joined  at  the 
wrists;  her  tapering  fingers  were  like  ivory.  As  he 
studied  them  he  was  startled  at  their  suddenly 
meeting  in  a  rigid  clasp,  the  knuckles  white  and 
sharp.  He  looked  up  and  saw  that  they  were 

[131] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

drawing  near  a  small  group  of  men  outside  the 
apothecary's  shop. 

A  curious  silence  fell  upon  these  as  the  carriage 
approached:  there  were  the  two  Radlaws,  one 
saturnine  and  bleak,  the  other  greenish,  shattered 
by  drugs;  Thomas  Gast;  Vleet,  the  fishing 
schooner's  master,  and  a  casual,  familiar  passerby. 
Jason  Burrage  stared  at  them  with  a  stony  ominous 
countenance,  at  which  Gast  made  a  gesture  of  com 
bined  insolence  and  uncertainty.  Jason  had  sunk 
back  on  the  cushions  when  he  was  astonished  by 
Honora's  commanding  the  coachman  to  stop.  It 
was  evident  that  she  was  about  to  descend;  he  put 
out  a  hand  to  restrain  her,  but  she  disregarded  him. 
His  astonishment  increased  to  incredulity  and  then 
fear;  he  rose  hurriedly,  but  relaxed  with  a  mutter 
of  pain. 

Honora,  a  Canderay,  had  taken  the  carriage 
whip  from  its  holder,  and  was  walking,  direct  and 
composed,  toward  Thomas  Gast.  She  stopped  a 
short  distance  away:  before  an  exclamation,  a 
movement,  was  possible  she  had  swept  the  thong 
of  the  whip  across  Cast's  face.  The  blow  was 
swung  with  force,  and  the  man  faltered,  a  burning 
welt  on  the  pallor  of  his  countenance.  The  coach 
man  and  Jason  Burrage  in  the  carriage,  the  men 
together  on  the  sidewalk,  seemed  part  of  an  inani 
mate  group  of  which  the  only  thing  endowed  with 
life  was  the  whip  flickering  again,  cutting  and 
wrapping,  about  a  face. 

[132] 


THE    DARK    FLEECE 

There  was  a  curiously  ruthless  impersonality 
about  Honora's  erect  presence,  her  icy  cold  profile. 
Memories  of  old  stories  of  Ithiel  Canderay,  the 
necessary  salt  cruelness  of  punishment  in  ships, 
flashed  through  Jason's  mind.  An  intolerable 
weight  of  time  seemed  to  drag  upon  him.  Thomas 
Gast  gave  a  hoarse  gurgle  and  lurched  forward,  but 
the  relentless  lash  drove  him  back. 

"You  whisperer!"  Honor  a  said  in  her  ringing 
voice,  "you  liar  and  slabbering  coward!  It's 
necessary  to  cut  the  truth  out  of  you.  When  you 
talk  again  about  Mr.  Burrage  and  the  man  he  shot 
in  California  don't  leave  out  the  smallest  detail  of 
his  exoneration.  Say  that  he  had  been  robbed,  the 
other  broke  one  of  the  first  laws  of  miners  and 
should  have  been  killed.  You'd  not  have  done  it 
— a  knife  in  the  back  would  be  your  thought — but 
a  man  would ! " 

She  flung  the  whip  down  on  the  bricks. 

Thomas  Gast  pressed  his  hands  to  his  face,  and 
slow  red  stains  widened  through  his  fingers.  The 
apothecary  stood  transfixed;  his  brother  was  shak 
ing  in  a  febrile  and  congested  horror.  The  woman 
turned  disdainfully,  moving  to  the  carriage;  the 
coachman  descended  and  offered  his  arm  as  she 
mounted  to  the  seat.  The  reins  were  drawn  and 
the  horses  started  forward  in  a  walk. 

Honora's  gaze  was  set,  looking  directly  ahead; 
her  hands,  in  her  lap  of  flowered  muslin,  were  now 
relaxed;  they  gave  an  impression  of  crushing 

[133] 


THE    DARK   FLEECE 

weariness.  Jason's  heart  pounded  like  a  forge 
hammer;  a  tremendous  realization  was  forced  into 
his  brain — he  need  never  again  question  why 
Honora  had  married  him;  his  doubts  were  an 
swered,  stopped,  for  ever.  He  turned  to  her  to 
speak  an  insignificant  part  of  his  measureless  grati 
tude,  but  he  was  choked,  blinded,  by  a  passion  of 
honor  and  homage. 

Her  gaze  sought  him,  and  there  was  a  faint 
tremor  of  her  lips;  it  grew  into  the  shadow  of  an 
ironic  smile.  Suddenly  it  was  borne  upon  his  new, 
acquiescent  serenity  that  Honora  would  always  be 
a  Canderay  for  him,  he  must  perpetually  think  of 
her  in  the  terms  of  his  early  habit;  she  would 
eternally  be  a  little  beyond  him,  a  being  to  ap 
proach,  to  attend,  with  ceremony.  The  memory 
and  sweep  of  all  California,  the  pageant  of  life  he 
had  seen  on  the  way,  his  own  boasted  success  and 
importance,  faded  before  the  solid  fact  of  Honora's 
commanding  heritage  in  life,  in  Cottarsport. 


[134] 


\ 


^Y     AND     TO     ...00     ON 


JUL  10  193 
FEB  1 3  1184 

OCT  25 1937 


28Apr'59AJ 
REC'D  LD 
APR  16  1959 


MAY     rf,19L 


LD  21-50 


YB  6764 


598314 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


